


Sick Of All The Insincere

by dixiehellcat



Series: Wordsmith [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Tower, Avengers continue to act like they got good sense, Avengers team - Freeform, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Damsels Doing Damage, F/M, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Team Pepperony, fixing more its, more Hydra-fuckery, the results of good therapy, trigger warning--abusive relationship, trigger warning--mention of suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-10-18 07:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17576753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: The time period of Captain America: The Winter Soldier in the Wordsmith verse includes many of the same events, but not occurring in exactly the same way. The exposure of HYDRA, the fall of SHIELD, and the revelations about the Winter Soldier unfold, but Steve and Natasha don't face them alone--Tony and their other teammates are there to back them up! With Project Insight thwarted, how will HYDRA attack one of their major adversaries? What unexpected truths may be revealed? And what role does Chrissy play in the whole thing?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to part 5 of Wordsmith! I went ahead and noted warning in the tags for a couple of events that get referred to farther on in this story, just so folks will know ahead of time. This one starts up shortly after the end of part 4. Comments and questions are always welcomed! Strap in and hang on; this is where canon divergence really starts to take on a whole new meaning. lol
> 
> The title comes from the song Secrets, by One Republic.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY48BqCiyzo  
> Lying, telling the truth, and the choices people make between the two are themes throughout this story.

I prided myself on being the person who taught Captain America to text. Correction: sometimes, I prided myself. On the days when he sent me messages every thirty minutes all day, I felt more like Dr. Frankenstein than Mother Teresa. My second mistake, if you count actually teaching Steve as my first, was encouraging him to drop me a line whenever he wanted, for practice, for fun, and just to give him somebody other than government agents and fellow superheroes to connect with. Really, though I ribbed him about it, I liked hearing about his everyday activities, and lending a guiding word or two when he asked.

Steve was still living in Washington, taking missions for SHIELD, getting updated training, and, he confessed, finishing basic training. As he pungently put it, after volunteering for the experimental procedure that made him a super-soldier, he had been assigned to be a ‘dancing monkey’ with the USO, stumbled into the actual combat theater, and become a troop leader, all without ever having actually completed the preparation every grunt on the ground had. 

(When he shared that story with the other Avengers, Tony promptly launched into a very loud and obnoxious rendition of some cheesy song apparently used in Captain America’s stage show. That, of course, resulted in a very loud and obnoxious scrum, when Steve tackled him to make him shut up. Their teammates piled on, laughing, and I got my Southern ass out of the way, stood back and enjoyed the show. Hey, I’m the Avengers’ PR director, I have to keep myself safe, I’m important! At least, they all keep telling me that.)

Every couple of weeks, Steve came up to New York for what he called his ongoing orientation to the twenty-first century. In part, that comprised Avengers team meetings, and his regular and discreet therapy sessions with Dr. Rina Rausch. Mostly though, it translated to him being hauled around town educated on everything from tech to shopping, cars to books to clothes. Pepper took him to her office on a lower floor of Avengers Tower, where he refreshed and updated his people-watching skills. She liked to tease that he was her backup arm candy when Tony was otherwise occupied. I warned her she would pay if I had to get in front of the crazed Big Apple media to fend off open talk of a threesome; there was already a school of thought online that insisted she was doing them both. “I’d be exhausted AND exasperated,” she demurred.

That rumor might be gaining only minimal traction because Steve was out in public with me as much if not more than with Pep. I was dreading the moment when observers’ imaginations paired us off, but that hadn’t happened, probably because I was (thankfully!) not as well known, despite some months of being the public voice of the Avengers. Taking Captain America to theaters and diners, baseball games and bookstores, was great fun, positive PR, and one part of my job that never, ever got old.

We had planned a raid on the Strand, the legendary used bookstore in the East Village, for his next visit, which, as often, he had timed to coincide with movie night. I was checking the level of popcorn in the communal kitchen that morning, just to be thoughtful, when my phone in my back pocket buzzed with a text from Steve. ::sorry Chris, but I can’t make it today. Got emergency mission with Nat::

Avengers weren’t exactly required to let me know when they took assignments, or went on operations or appearances, outside the team framework; but they all did, to keep me from being caught flat-footed, because they all knew I got asked questions at press briefings about literally any and every move any of them made. I mean it. One time, Clint was sent to North Carolina to help the Cherokee Nation check out a suspected white supremacist encampment; he bought his baby daughter some handcrafted moccasins while he was there, and damned if I didn’t get hit with a question, the instant I kicked off the next presser, from some fool from the Post wanting to know if Hawkeye had finally gotten the Black Widow pregnant. (Never mind that I have no idea if Clint and Natasha have ever had sex, nor do I have any wish to know that.)

My gratitude for the considerate way the superheroes I worked with treated me mingled, in this case, with disappointment. ::Fury needs to get w your schedule. Tell him villains aren’t allowed to do shit on Wed’s.::

I envisioned Steve grinning, before a reply appeared on-screen. ::I’ll be sure to pass that along::

::lol. I’ll let team know. will miss you! be careful & tell Natasha hi::

::will do all of the above::

Other than whatever SHIELD had shipped Steve and Natasha off to do, things were quiet around the tower between Avengers missions. A firefighter friend of mine once described his job as long stretches of boredom interspersed with brief periods of absolute panic. I understood the feeling, even though the quiet spells were far from dull. When I wasn’t having to handle being at the heart of breaking news, I helped Pepper and Leticia, Stark Industries’ head of public relations; ran the official Avengers social media accounts; kept up with sorting fan mail and getting it to its intended recipients; and more and more. Nothing about the Avengers Initiative was ever unexciting!

Tony had offered to build me a bot to haul bags of fan mail around the tower, but I considered it part of my regular exercise. Besides, there were usually a few special-looking pieces I liked to deliver by hand, and sometimes I got to stick around and satisfy my catlike curiosity when they got opened. (It had been a privilege to see Bruce moved almost to tears one day, when a flat package had contained a journal with an article by a young chemist inspired by his early work.)

A few days passed. Steve texted me again, because he knew I would be concerned until I heard he and Natasha had completed their mission safely. Relieved, I loaded several sacks of deliveries for Captain America onto the big service elevator and dropped them on his floor, then rode down to the dungeon, as I jokingly called Tony’s workshop in the tower basement. The tall, wide doors opened to the throb of loud bass guitar and the counterpoint of Tony swearing furiously. “What’s the deal, hot rod?” I asked while I scooted a couple of bags for him out.

The string of profanities broke off. “Hey, my favorite snail-mail Sherpa!” 

The stop was too quick, and when Tony turned from his computer bank toward me, I could see the deliberative little squint. “Hey, hon. Sorry, I didn’t mean to stick my nose into something none of my business. Forget I asked.”

“No! No, actually, it is your business, kind of.” He gestured me over with one hand while the other worked over the keyboard in front of him. A holographic version of his monitor popped into existence in the air, enlarged for easy reading. “Steve just sent me this.”

The email read, ::Tony—remember the repulsor-powered engine systems you developed for SHIELD? I just saw them. They’re on three extra-large Helicarriers, tied in to a network of targeting satellites and armed with long-range precision guns. It’s called Project Insight, and long story short, they’re intended to identify and kill criminals before they commit crimes.::

No wonder Tony was so mad. “SHIELD basically tricked you into building—”

“Weapons,” he snarled. “Again. When they knew—Fury _knew_ why I stopped.”

I continued reading silently. ::Fury’s ok with it, which bothers me, but he’s concerned. Since Pepper & Chris alerted him to the comm breakdowns with the Avengers, he’s been checking around. He thinks someone within SHIELD tried to sabotage us by diverting messages, & doesn’t want the same faction leaking info or trying to tamper with this. As bad as it sounds in SHIELD’s hands, how much worse could it be if used by others to target innocent people? Fury’s asking the World Security Council to delay activation long enough for him to look into it more.::

“Whew,” I breathed. “This sounds like a disaster looking for a place to happen.”

Tony grunted, his hands flying on the keys before him. “See why I said it was your business? Fury’s on to something, which he wouldn’t have known to look for if you and Pep hadn’t gotten on his ass about things not getting to their destinations.”

::Anyway,:: Steve’s message concluded, ::not saying there’s anything you could do, but wanted to make you aware. Be safe, hope to see you all soon.::

“Not saying there’s anything you could do,” I repeated out loud with much amusement. “Like he doesn’t know better.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Like he doesn’t know anything you’ve touched, and most things you haven’t, you can hack into, bend to suit your will, and/or wreck in ways unimaginable.” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome like that.” Tony smiled, and a schematic appeared in the air before him, as the holo-screen in front of me vanished.

“And that kinda looks like a repulsor engine.”

“Does it?” He cocked his head at me in feigned surprise. “It was supposed to look like the ceiling fan in mine and Pep’s bedroom.”

“Imagine that. What a coincidence.” I gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “I better get back to work, Bruce slipped me some compromising photos that need to go on y’all’s Facebook page.” 

“Pepper will kill you if you spoil my image, such as it is. She’s worked hard to rehabilitate me.”

“Oh. No, I meant the ones he took of you and Pep and Clint out on the front steps playing with the kittens those kids were trying to give away last week. That kind of compromising photos.”

“We found them all good homes! Print the truth, Everhart!” I left behind me giggles (well, Tony would never acknowledge that he giggles, but he does) followed by “JARVIS, you up for some cyber-breaking and entering?”

“Felonious ventures are always more fun with you, sir. Shall we?” 

It was not my business, I figured, what Tony did to the helicarriers when he and his AI accessed them, or how. Whatever he did must have gone according to plan, since the only complaints I heard from him in the next couple of days was when he wandered through the common kitchen glowering at his phone. “Fury needs to quit whoring me out,” he grumbled. “He just texted me that the head of the WSC is doing him a favor in return for Iron Man coming to his niece’s birthday party. _Not just a flyby_ , pirate king says, _you’ve gotta mingle_ …” 

He wandered back out, grousing around the cookie he stuffed in his mouth. With a chuckle to myself, I finished making my sandwich and headed back for my office, mentally updating my grocery list so I didn’t have to come back downstairs and use the community bottle of mustard again.

Just as I stepped off the elevator, my phone began to both buzz and ping, at alarming rates. It took a little juggling to set the plate down and fish it out of my back pocket. Half a dozen texts and at least that many voicemails were clogging the little screen, and every one of them contained a variation on the same question.

_Do the Avengers have any comment on the reported death of SHIELD Director Nick Fury, and the reported involvement of Captain America?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Publicly accused of involvement in Fury's death, Steve is on the run with Nat, but they keep the other Avengers informed of the truth. Tony gets a cryptic email and starts searching for the codes to hack SHIELD at the highest level. Chrissy holds the press at bay, gets an unexpected revelation about Howard Stark, and crosses verbal swords with Alexander Pierce, who reminds her of a ghost from the past.

For a moment I just stared at the phone, not comprehending. Then I ran full tilt for my office. One hand grabbed for the TV remote while the other flipped my laptop open. With the TV in pic-in-pic mode, I could see two news channels at once; the laptop woke up on Twitter where I’d left it. All three gave me pieces of the same horrible story. 

Fury was shot at Steve’s apartment. Steve refused to disclose why Fury was there, or anything else he knew about what happened. Fury was rushed to the nearest hospital by SHIELD agents, but died on the operating table. When Steve was approached for questioning, he attacked several agents and fled. 

Forgotten in my hand, my phone sounded again, but this time, instead of buzzes or pings, it played a few bars of Ozzy. Instantly I brought it to my ear. “Tony! Are you seeing this?”

“Pep just showed me. What the FUCK.”

“I don’t know, other than Steve didn’t do shit. I know that, Tony, and so do you.”

“Hell, no, he didn’t.”

The phone vibrated against the side of my head. “My in box is blowing up. I’m going to tell them the Avengers will issue a statement soon. That’ll fend them off for now, until y’all decide exactly what you want said.”

The rest of the day was a blur, fielding dozens of calls and texts and emails. I lined up a short-notice media gaggle, and said nothing more than what I had promised Tony, no matter the yells from the press corps. However, I pledged to call them all back as soon as I had official word to share with them, which, I told them, would be as soon as the Avengers had more information. 

Amid the turmoil, it was surprisingly easy to lose sight of its point of origin. To be honest, a part of me wanted to. As irritating as Nick Fury could sometimes be, the notion of him being gone hurt. He did not readily trust, but he had trusted me, because Tony did, and I had done my best to repay that confidence. Now I wondered if he had misplaced his faith in someone else, and if that had led to his death. One thing was for sure: whoever was responsible would pay. If I had to put money on anything, it was that Steve was most likely hunting the killer, right now, while he himself was being hunted. 

That raised the question, though, of why SHIELD suspected Steve. Maybe he had been set up by the actual killer. Or maybe, the actual killer was inside SHIELD itself. That thought chilled me. How could the team know who to believe? How could I know? And how could Steve, on the run, stay safe?

At least I knew a few people I could believe: the ones in this building, full or part-time. I headed for the penthouse, where I found Bruce stretched out on the gigantic couch doing breathing exercises to maintain calm while Tony and Pepper stared at the TV. “Heard from Clint?” I asked. “Or Natasha? She was on an assignment with Steve last week.”

“Nothing from Itsy Bitsy,” Tony said, his focus on the big screen, sounding about as numb as I felt. “Clint’s here. In fact, he’s downstairs picking up the pizzas we called out for.”

We had plowed through half the pizza, on autopilot (I couldn’t have even told you what toppings were on the things) when Tony’s phone, lying on the end table, went off. “Shit, it’s Steve.” There was a mad scramble to gather round as Tony read the text aloud. “::Suspect rogues inside SHIELD behind hit on Fury. Came to my place, gave me some leads, I’m checking them out with Nat::.’’ Peering over Tony’s shoulder, I watched him type, ::Need a hand?::

Just as he hit send, another message arrived and Tony continued reading to us. “::Nat says assassin called Winter Soldier. Tough hombre with a metal arm:: Ooh. ::caught my shield::—what the fuck, Steve?—::when he came at us in my apartment. 50 year history, so most recent of that name I’m guessing::. Hm, time for some research. Wait, more? Damn, Rogers, send an owl, why don’t you? ::thanks but your hand’s needed where you are. stay on alert in case attempts made to steal carriers. we’re going silent for now, ttyl::.”

“Doesn’t say why SHIELD accused him,” Clint said, “but if a rogue element’s trying to take the agency from inside—” He twitched, and I squeezed his shoulder, with a silent prayer for Steve’s safety. 

“They’d want a convenient scapegoat,” Pepper finished, her eyes full of concern. “At least we know Natasha’s with him. I wouldn’t bet against those two.”

Bruce made a noise of fervent agreement. “Want some help with this helicarrier thing, Tony?”

“Thanks, Brucie-bear, but I think I’m good—” Tony broke off as his phone made a different sound. “Email, huh.” He scanned the screen, and a frown creased his forehead. “Not Steve. Anonymous sender, and heavy encryption.” He hopped up, kissed Pepper quickly and headed for the elevator. “Taking this to the shop. Save me one more slice!”

The impromptu partial-team meeting broke up shortly thereafter. Bruce headed off to meditate, and Clint ostensibly to check on his building (although I would have bet with a bookie he was planning to attempt to contact Natasha. They have ways.) Pepper was going to take the leftover pizza down to Tony, but she needed to get back to SI, so I volunteered to be Meals on Wheels.

Down in the workshop, Tony was glaring at his monitors as though they were backtalking him. “Should I get the fuck out of the way, or risk asking what the mystery email contained?” I asked after I plunked the pizza box down on the nearest vacant workspace.

“A retinal scan.”

“Come again?”

“To be more accurate, Nick Fury’s retinal scan. Of his non-functioning eye.” I must have looked every bit as lost as I was. “They’re required to access SHIELD’s databases. Generally, attached to the eye in question, but that’s not always mandatory.”

“Oh. But why his bad eye? That seems…counterintuitive, to put it mildly.”

“Thought so too, for a hot minute, until JARVIS and I did a little sneaking and discovered, surprise surprise, Nick’s authorizations have been wiped. Must have been done before he cooled, even.” I winced. “Yeah, likewise. Makes me wonder how high the corruption goes, since only another Alpha-level clearance could have deleted his access. Thing is, the scan on file would have been his good eye, but, sly dog that he was, he had an ancillary, protected code, that uses this scan instead.”

“Sounds like him,” I chuckled. “So you can get into SHIELD now?”

“Not yet. It takes two Alphas to unlock the encryption safeguards.” Tony scowled again. “The note that came with the scan said the other material I’d need was in a box Fury brought me in Malibu. That’s sleeping with the fishes, of course, but I scanned it all into JARVIS’ memory, so now I’m digging through it looking for the right thread to pull.”

“Ouch.” Yeah, everything in Tony’s old house was gone with the wind, all right. “Fury thought it’d be safer with you? Oops.”

“Yeah, it…SHIELD was storing some of my dad’s old stuff.” I opened my mouth to ask fifty questions at once, but Tony intercepted all of them by simply saying, “He, ah, kind of helped start it. SHIELD, I mean.”

Well. That was new.

Leaving Tony to puzzle over the cryptic clue to the location of the second access code, I headed back to my floor. A quick request to JARVIS started up some soft and slightly spacy music, conducive to my brain’s creative impulses. I posted notification on social media, for another press availability tomorrow; then I recorded a quick outgoing message for my voice mail before I turned my ringer off, and typed up a short bounce-back for my email, both to the same effect.

With my ducklings more or less in a row, I dove into crafting a brief statement that packed a punch without disclosing any of the information Steve had surreptitiously passed along to us. When I surfaced after a good long while, I glanced at my phone to find several missed calls. All but one were from media outlets I recognized from my address book. The odd one out was a restricted number. I gulped, praying it wasn’t Steve trying to call however he could, on a burner phone or some line Natasha had hacked. _Lord, take care of them. Give them strength and speed and cunning, to discern the evil._

Just then, the phone vibrated in my hand. It was that mystery number again. My mouth dry, I answered. “Christine Everhart?” a pleasant male voice asked.

“Speaking.”

“My name is Alexander Pierce. I’m with the World Security Council, and I’m…I was a friend of Nick Fury’s. I wanted to check on the Avengers, see how they’re holding up, considering the situation.”

“Oh, uh, hello, sir. I’m sorry I missed your earlier call! As to the team, they’re doing about as well as can be expected, I suppose. They’re very concerned about Captain Rogers, of course, and they are wondering what makes SHIELD so certain he is in the wrong somehow? Do you know who talked to him?”

“I did.”

Ulp. I thought about what Tony had said, about his suspicion that the rot must go very, very high. “Steve may be afraid to trust anybody, sir, to be perfectly honest—not meaning you any personal disrespect. I don’t know you, but if you were Director Fury’s friend, I’m certain of what sort of person you are. We all know, though, that high placement doesn’t preclude corruption. I personally know of at least one instance of a person at the very top of an organization who was bad to his very core.”

An ironic laugh replied. “His name wouldn’t happen to have been Obadiah Stane, would it?”

My brain stuttered in frank shock for an instant, then rebooted. “Hah, of course, you all would know about that! I’m sorry, sir.”

“Nick said you were a saucy little thing,” Pierce chuckled, “and he was so very rarely wrong as a judge of character.” Suddenly, I could not speak. “I’m so sorry, Miss Everhart. I know you dealt most directly with him.”

“Thank you, sir. I did, and eventually I liked him. I think the whole team did, in their own individual ways.”

“He was rarely wrong…but he was wrong, sometimes.” Before I could pursue that cryptic comment, Pierce continued more briskly. “I heard on your outgoing message that you have a press conference scheduled for tomorrow. What do you have planned?”

“Not much yet, sir. The Avengers don’t intend to make any assertions until they have hard evidence to back them in hand.”

“I submit that the Avengers would be best served by publicly supporting SHIELD,” Pierce said slowly.

“I don’t make those decisions, Mr. Pierce,” I countered. “The whole team respects Steve. He’s their field commander and a good leader, and it’s going to take an awful lot to make them change their minds about him.”

“Interesting. I wasn’t there when they first worked together, but I seem to recall Nick saying that Captain Rogers and Tony Stark were far from being buddies; that they didn’t particularly like or trust each other.”

“Things change, thank the Lord.”

There was a long moment of quiet, as though the man on the other end was digesting what he had heard. “You are a civilian employee of SHIELD. In that capacity, you could be ordered to present the official stance on this matter.”

“With all due respect, sir, I wasn’t hired to speak for SHIELD. It has its own— media proxies.” _Thank you Lord, for keeping me from saying ‘mouthpieces’!_ “I’ve been seeing them on TV, doing the job they are obligated to do. Nick Fury hired me to speak for the Avengers, and that’s what I do.”

After another silence, Pierce said, “You are…a remarkable woman, Miss Everhart. Thank you for your skill and competence, and for caring so deeply for the persons who give you their confidence. I regret that we’ve never gotten to meet in person, and I plan to remedy that sometime soon.”

I mouthed thanks and goodbyes, and hung up, suddenly reminded of Obadiah Stane; not just because his name and deeds had been invoked in the conversation, but because Alexander Pierce’s unctuous voice made the hair on the back of my neck sit up in exactly the same way he had. I really did not want to be put in a position to have to deal with this man face to face, unless I had a hero or two backing me up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy wrangles the press, Tony accesses all of SHIELD's secrets, Steve makes contact again, and the team starts making plans.

The next morning at the presser, I did exactly what I had told Pierce I was going to do. The statement I read did not take SHIELD’s side. The words made clear that the Avengers supported their absent captain, and held any efforts to force a judgement in abeyance until all information was laid out. “There are too many variables for the team to jump to any conclusions,” I said. “For all we know, there’s been a terrible misunderstanding, accidental or even deliberate in nature, in whole or in part. One thing everybody knows is, Captain America is not a criminal, and the members of the Avengers Initiative hold firm to the position that the facts will bear that out.”

The members of the press corps were unsatisfied. They shouted questions, about rumors that Steve had killed half a dozen SHIELD agents at some secret base, stolen top-security files, wrecked government equipment, and/or was in cahoots with rogue assassins. Well, if by the last one they meant Natasha, I guessed that was accurate; but I ignored them all like trolls on Twitter.

My piece said, I turned away from the podium, so focused on not biting somebody’s head off that I nearly did when a hand took my elbow. Fortunately, the hand was attached to Tony; unfortunately for him, a couple of reporters spotted him and started to yell for comment from him. “Miss Everhart speaks for us, so what she said goes,” Tony yelled back. “Fun’s over for now! Head ‘em up and move ‘em out. Starbucks down in the lobby’s having a special, show ‘em your press pass and they promise not to spill your latte on your shoes. Much.” With a jaunty wave and a brief flash of his ‘public smile’, he ushered me off the platform.

“Whew, thanks, hot rod,” I sighed. As soon as the doors closed behind us and we were safely away, Tony stopped in his tracks and let me lean on him for a moment. “This is ten pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag. With Fury gone, Steve on the run—and hell, Alexander Pierce called me last night, trying to pressure me to come out in favor of SHIELD chasing Steve down, can you imagine that?”

Tony went even more still. “Pierce is one of the few people with Alpha level access. Somebody could be pulling his strings behind the scenes. Or, hell, he could be one of the string-pullers, who knows. C’mon, I’m on my way to update the others, you can tell them what he said.”

“Okay. Were you able to find the other access code for the SHIELD computers?”

We got in the elevator. “Yeah,” he said shortly, and stared at the closing doors. Instead of the excitement I would expect, he seemed disturbed.

“Problem?”

“No, no, it’s just—Having to plow through my dad’s old stuff, again, it’s like the old stories where a wizard raises a ghost to interrogate it, and then can’t get it to go back down, you know?”

I slipped an arm around his waist and tugged him closer, to let him lean on me. “Fury said he thought your dad would be proud of you.” Over his sarcastic bark of laughter, I went on, “I’m no advocate of revisionist history, but I’ve never heard that Howard Stark was deranged or stupid; and frankly, however shitty a parent he was, a man would have to be either or both to look at you and not bust his buttons with pride.”

Tony laughed again, more softly. “I was going to ask Steve about him. I’d finally gotten the nerve up to. Dr. Rausch thinks it might help me let some shit go, to talk to him, try to figure out how the Howard he knew got to be the one I knew.”

“Sounds like a plan. Y’all can put your heads together, once we get this mess cleaned up.” The elevator dinged on the sixtieth floor, and we headed toward the main team conference area, with a side dodge to grab coffee. “Damn, listen to me saying _we_. Like, me and the mouse in my pocket? I spent half the time on the phone with Pierce last night saying various versions of ‘I’m not a decision-maker, I’m just a messenger’.

“Wrong.” Tony took a big swig of his coffee. “Just because you don’t wear a fancy suit and kick asses…wait.” He stopped in the middle of the hallway, just outside the conference room door, and scrutinized me, dressed in my usual professional armor. “Never mind. You do wear a fancy suit and kick asses.” He nodded with a satisfied little smirk, as though that was settled. “When we have to go do crazy shit, and then we fall back into the real world, you weave the safety net that catches us. Don’t say that doesn’t make you an important part of this team.”

Slightly dumbfounded, I followed him into the conference room. Clint sat perched on the edge of the big table, and Bruce was nursing a steaming cup of tea. “Got in touch with Nat,” Clint said. “She’s with Steve, and they’re okay. Hooked up with a friend of his, retired para-rescue, part of something called Project Falcon?”

Tony brightened. “Rhodey consulted on that! I may have, in fact. Little fuzzy on those years. But yeah, if the guy served there, he should be on the level.”

“Tell ya who’s not on the level.” Clint hopped off the table and landed in a chair. “The secretary of the WSC, Alexander Pierce. Nat and Steve went to an abandoned military base chasing a lead, and barely got out with their skins after somebody shot a ballistic missile at ‘em. Not many people got that level of auth.”

“And are trying to bludgeon us into condemning Cap.” Tony’s voice tightened. “Tell ‘em what you just told me, Chrissy.”

I did; then Clint added, “Nat said Pierce told Steve that SHIELD thinks Fury was dirty—that whoever he was dealing with double-crossed him and killed him.”

Bruce shook his head. “Fury’s sneaky, but I can’t see him doing that.”

“Same here. Hopefully we’ll have more info soon. JARVIS is downloading the whole contents of SHIELD’s databases, as we speak.” Tony told them what he had told me the night before, about the anonymous email and the copy of Fury’s retinal scan; and, a bit more hesitantly, about his father’s role as a founder of SHIELD. “Took some digging, but then it occurred to me, SHIELD had computers before retinal scans existed, and they had security. I know, because dad set the whole system up. So I found his old passwords, and they still worked.”

“Of course,” I breathed. “Nobody would’ve thought to wipe those, or even look for them, except you.”

“And whoever sent you Fury’s scan,” Clint put in, “because they would have known it took two Alphas to get past the security. Which begs the question of who the hell that was. Pierce would’ve had access to it if he’s the one who wiped it. He could’ve been trying to set you up, but how would he have known your dad’s access codes were still in the system to begin with? I’m sure they weren’t exactly obvious. And if he had, why leave them in, except on the off chance you might figure it out and come hacking?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Merida.” Tony shook his head. “I mean, I know who my prime suspect would be, but only if ghosts could—”

The ringtone of his phone interrupted his speculations. He glanced at the tiny screen, and his eyes went dark in a way I instantly recognized. “Oh shit, Tony. Who is it?” I asked.

“Pierce,” he ground out, before he answered. Pepper walked in, her mouth open to speak, but I shushed her and waved her to the chair beside me. “What the hell do you want?” _Oh great_ , I thought. _Yeah, go there, why don’t you Tony?_ Bruce’s eyes bulged, and Clint’s face was red, though I couldn’t decide if it was from anger or amusement or some of both. I knew the gleam in Pepper’s eye was amusement; she didn’t know any better at the moment. All levity fled the next moment, though, when Tony said into the phone, “You bastards better not hurt them.” My heart almost literally felt like it would stop. There was only one thing he could mean. “No. Hell no. We don’t answer to you. No Avenger does, whether they’re active duty or ground support. Steve Rogers didn’t do a damn thing to Fury, or anybody else, unless they were out to get him. We don’t believe your shit, and nobody else is going to. Oh, and tell your niece not to expect me at her birthday party, you dick.”

He disconnected and nearly threw his phone across the room. “SHIELD got Steve,” Clint said into the dead stillness that followed.

“And Natasha, and the falcon guy.” Tony rubbed his hand over his face, suddenly looking very tired, and worried.

“Uh, catch me up, somebody?” Pepper asked. I took that on, while the guys talked quietly. I hoped they weren’t planning a jailbreak, but the way Tony and Clint spoke, low and urgent, close together, with Bruce chiming in occasionally, I wouldn’t bet against it. 

Tony had just straightened up, where he had stood bent over talking to the other men in their chairs, when his phone pinged the arrival of a text. His jaw clenched, but only until he checked it; then he swore, wide-eyed. “Steve?”

“Wait, how—” Bruce sputtered as we all pressed in close to Tony.

“::We’re ok::,” Tony read aloud. “::so’s Fury::—wha?—::faked death, went underground. Thank Bruce for some drug he developed, real Romeo and Juliet thing.:: Well, that’s a relief. Not surprised really, Fury’s too mean to die.” 

“Tetrodotoxin B,” Bruce nodded. “Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. I developed it for stress, hoped it would help me rein in the big guy. Didn't work so great unfortunately, but sounds like Fury came up with a use for it.”

“The zombie drug, right?” I said. “It comes from pufferfish. I’ve read about it.”

Bruce gave me a brief side-eye, then grinned. “Of course you would have.” 

Tony snickered and continued reading Steve’s texts. “::Maria Hill’s w him, sprung us from—HYDRA::? At the risk of repeating myself, _what??_ ::they’ve been in SHIELD for years, promoting chaos so they can take over. Have a hit list, plan to use helicarriers to assassinate::. Whew, now there’s a creative use of your tax dollars.”

I was looking over his shoulder, so I saw him type in ::tell me where you are, I’ll suit up and come get you & we’ll take the bastards out::

::Tony no!:: came back almost immediately. ::you’re at the top of their list. The instant they see Iron Man they’d come at you with all they got:: 

The yip that burst from my throat came without warning, not that I could have stopped it. Startled questions rose from the others in the room; Tony started to turn toward me, and I knew, I just knew, he was going to glare at me to keep me from telling them, but that was not an option now. “Tony’s on HYDRA’s hit list.”

He finished the turn, and scowled, actually angry at me; I didn’t care. “Big mouth,” he snarled.

“When your ass is on the line? Damn straight. Steve’s right; if you went out there, they’d drop everything else to hurt you, and they wouldn’t stop until they did!” 

With a low gasp, Pepper moved in and put an arm around him. “I can send a remote suit,” he argued and texted simultaneously.

“Might work,” Clint agreed.

Steve did not agree. ::that’d tip them off that you know, and they might come after you at the tower. Puts Pepper & Chris & SI’s people at risk. Plus, Bruce. He’s on the list too::

“Uh, me?” Bruce looked sincerely shocked when I shared that message with the team (Tony had stopped reading aloud, in favor of alternately reassuring Pepper and sulking).

::you’ve got to stay safe, Tony.:: Steve’s text continued. ::muscle is good, but right now your brains are more important to us. You’re the only one who can take out the helicarriers & save the whole list. Fury has computer chips, but they’d have to be placed individually by hand on all 3 ships & there’s no time. He expected you to already have hacked them, so if not yet done, this might be a good time::

Tony grinned at the last part, seemingly past his spate of pouting. “Rogers appreciates my unique skill set, even when he’s being a little shit.”

I reached to pluck the phone out of his hand. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Think again,” he countered and held it out of my reach.

“Figures that Nick would tell Steve about this Project Insight, knowing he’d come straight to you,” Pepper said. “You’re already into the carriers, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” Tony returned with a look that said _you think so little of me?_

The phone pinged one more time. ::be ready to knock out the helicarriers, maybe wait until they are just about to take off then bust them up, make them unusable. Fury also wants to know if you got the info he sent to get you into SHIELD database.::

“Now that we know what’s going on,“ Tony cracked his knuckles, “this is gonna be fun.” He texted ::yeah, tell Fury thx for the eye candy. I found the other code & used them appropriately. Am very happy genius now::

The text thread ended ::he says Much obliged. I’ve got some personal matters to take care of, will be in touch when I can.:: 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy and the Avengers greet unexpected arrivals at the Tower.

Tony spent part of the afternoon lining up his cyber-weaponry and strategizing. He had set JARVIS to monitor the SHIELD helicarriers, and coded a virus to insert into their systems that, in technical terms, would fuck them six ways from Sunday. “It’ll blow their electrical setups, lock up the engines, erase the programming for directional, targeting, every damn thing else. Basically, within about sixty seconds of the instant they start to power up for takeoff, they become very, very expensive doorstops.”

“Gorgeous,” Bruce said. He had set his own work aside for the moment, and come down to the dungeon to observe and enjoy Tony’s gleeful plans to wreak havoc.

“Yeah, I am, aren’t I?” Tony smirked. “Don’t worry, buddy, nobody’s gonna get their tentacles on you, me, or any of their other targets.”

“Wasn’t HYDRA supposedly destroyed at the end of World War 2?” I asked, still a little taken aback by Steve’s report.

“Operative word being _supposedly_ ,” Tony returned. “Only takes a few to escape and keep the ball of octopus shit rolling. We’ll see just how many of them are in SHIELD, in a short time. JARVIS is almost finished downloading the databases, and then he’ll go through them and sort the bad apples out. Then, I guess, we make Hydra fruit salad.”

“What about the good apples?” Bruce objected. “That’s all the info on all the agents, and the majority of them are probably not dirty.”

“Course not. The data on loyal SHIELD operatives is going onto a secure server. And when I say secure, I mean _secure_. Hell, I don’t even know where it’s going.” Bruce and I exchanged puzzled looks, then turned mutually expectant eyes to Tony. “I own many, many servers, dozens of them. JARVIS rotates the most sensitive info among them randomly. He’s literally the only one who knows the physical address of a lot of my stuff.”

Bruce shook his head and smiled. Leaving Tony to scheme in the workshop, we both headed upstairs. I’d volunteered to help Bruce cook Indian for supper, but he needed to check on a couple of projects he’d left on the brew in the lab he and Tony shared before we made a market run. While he took measurements and documented and graphed, I sat and enjoyed the experience of being able to hang around science.

The peace of the lab was disturbed by a faint but angry buzz. I held my breath to listen, as it rapidly grew in volume, like something was rushing closer. “Bruce?” I said. “Do you hear—”

The windows along one side of the lab imploded with an ear-splitting crash, and four figures in dark clothing swung in through the open space. Over the echo of the smashing glass, they shouted to each other. “Where’s Stark?” “Get her!” “Take Banner down before—”

I jumped from the tall rolling stool I had perched on, and pushed it hard toward the nearest of the two invaders approaching me. It hit and overturned, which only slowed them for a stumbling second, but that was time I could use to arm myself. I grabbed a long screwdriver in one hand and Tony’s big cordless soldering iron in the other, with a quick prayer of thanks that Clint had pushed me to learn to use both hands. 

The attackers knew where they were and who we were, so given the timing, they almost had to be a HYDRA strike team coming after Bruce and Tony. Rage swept over me like a hot wind. “JARVIS, lockdown!” I hollered, then charged the goons with what I hoped was a blood-curdling yell. Tony had left the soldering iron out of its charger, so it was only going to be good for stabbing and not burning, but I flicked the On switch with my thumb as I ran, just because.

The goon sprawled over my fallen chair jerked his weapon up and pointed at me. “Stop, fool!” the second one cried. “Subdue her, not kill!” That might have cheered me, if he hadn’t promptly pointed a smaller handgun at me. I was in no mood to find out what ammo it shot, though. Determined to keep myself alive and do my teachers proud, I threw a kick at the downed guy’s chin. It snapped his head back, and I was able to use him as a launching pad to hurl myself under his buddy’s line of sight. 

With all of my weight and momentum behind it, the screwdriver sank into the soft flesh at the base of his throat. He let out a burbling, choked yell and dropped his weapon. From behind me I felt movement and flattened myself before the thug I’d tripped could swing his gun. I thrust backward blindly with the soldering iron and was rewarded by a hiss and screech, so I figured I must have stabbed something. 

Halfway through turning to engage him, a roar of sound rattled what glass was left in the lab, followed by a shout of fear that was choked into a gurgle, and a mighty thump. I got my feet under me, jumped up and threw myself the opposite direction, just before another roar sounded. I flopped onto the floor, winced and looked around to see two huge green hands grab the creeps I’d been scuffling with. The Hulk smashed their skulls together, then dropped them like dirty toilet paper. Beyond his huge form, the other two lay limp.

He stomped toward me, and I tensed in fear he was out of control; but I caught my breath, and in the spirit of the best defense being a good offense, I called up to him, “Whew, that was scary! Are you okay, big green?”

The giant crouched beside me, not roaring anymore, which I took as a very good sign. “Hulk okay. Put bad guys to sleep.”

“You sure did!” Relieved, I pushed myself up to stand, though my legs were shaky from adrenalin and shock, and looked around for something to tie them up.

One big finger prodded my knee. “Word girl bleeding!” 

I glanced down at the ruins of my nice linen slacks, splattered with red, and waved it off. “It’s just from this broken glass, nothing bad. Be careful and don’t cut yourself on it!” I grabbed several extension cords, and my companion dragged our unconscious guests over to the nearest work tables. “JARVIS, where is everybody?” I asked while I lashed them to the table legs.

“Sir was in the library on the common floor when the assault was launched. He summoned an Iron Man suit and dispatched three attackers, after which I directed him to the team sitting area, where Miss Potts and Agent Barton were engaged in what the agent described quite gleefully as ‘administering a country ass-whipping’ to two more assailants. Sir is currently assisting them in completing this administration.”

“Thanks. Big green, want to go see if our friends need some help smashing?”

Answered by a wicked smirk (did he learn that from Tony?), I led the way to the service elevator. Tony had set it up so Bruce’s alter ego could use it independently. Beside the regular controls, it sported four very large buttons, sized for Hulk’s digits and labeled with pictures. The one with the bed was an express to Bruce’s floor, and the one with the fork to the team floor (since Hulk associated it mostly with team meals). The third showed a simple drawing of an airplane and went straight to the roof, and the fourth button, marked with a lab flask, came directly to this floor. 

I told Hulk where we were bound, and he pushed the correct button with a satisfied grunt that morphed into another big grin when I praised him. The elevator door opened to the sight of Tony in his suit with gauntlets up, Clint with an arrow drawn, and Pepper right behind them, barefoot, with a spike-heel shoe in each hand, all of them aiming at us. “Dang,” I said mildly. “We were so worried about y’all, I forgot to ask JARVIS to tell you we were on our way. Everybody all right?”

Clint lowered his bow with a grin. “We’re good. Looks like you are too. Remember what we taught you?” he asked.

“Word girl smash!” Hulk crowed proudly, with a slap to my back that nearly downed me.

Pepper sighed with relief and managed a shaky laugh. “Looks like you have a friend for life, Chrissy.”

Tony flipped his faceplate up. “Big green puppy,” he agreed. He had blasted the three intruders who accosted him. “I think one of the shits put a bullet hole in my vintage copy of the Kama Sutra in the process, though. Uncouth, that’s what it is, trying to assassinate somebody in a fuckin’ _library_.” 

Clint had shot both the attackers on the team level, but bragged on Pepper for repeatedly head-kicking the one who tried to get up. “I was scared, Clint!” she protested. “I had to get all that adrenalin out somehow!”

“I keep offering to build you a suit,” Tony put in mildly. Pepper’s glare said he probably had brought that up more than a few times. 

With the other attackers deceased, our only chance at interrogation was the four Hulk and I had apprehended. Unfortunately, by the time we all got back to the lab, they were dead too. “Cyanide,” Tony grumbled, out of his suit and down on the floor sniffing around the mouth of one corpse. It was the one I had whacked with the soldering iron, and a long burn mark was scorched across his cheek; obviously the thing had been charged up after all. “Probably hidden in a fake tooth. Typical HYDRA dumbasses.”

“Why attack now?” Pepper wondered, her brow furrowed in concern.

“Maybe the verbal flaying Tony laid on Pierce,” Bruce opined, back to his smaller form and wrapped in the funky plaid blanket serape Tony kept in the lab for emergencies. 

“Makes sense,” Clint agreed while he helped me sweep up the broken glass on the floor. “If Pierce thought Tony might be on to them, he could have sent a kill squad in, thinking they’d get him and you both out of HYDRA’s way before they made their play to take control. He wouldn’t have had a clue we were already in his cupboard scoping out his snack situation.”

“Yeah, except,” I objected, “the ones that hit here explicitly said they weren’t ordered to kill everybody. ‘Subdue’, one of them said, and that wasn’t what Steve said.”

Tony frowned, got to his feet and headed for the nearest computer. “Tell me again exactly what they said, Chrissy,” he requested, and I complied. “They were looking for me,” he acknowledged after I finished. “The three teams hit the specific locations on the Avengers floors where people were, so I’m thinking they had heat sensors or the like to pinpoint life. They wanted to take Bruce down, before the big guy could smash ‘em. But then, the one said ‘subdue’…” He turned and pointed. “Talking about you. Right?”

“Well, yeah, but only because I was standing right in front of him. Pep, Clint, what did your guys say?”

“Nothing,” Clint said flatly. “They were shootin’ to kill, as far as I could tell.” Tony grimaced, and Pepper stroked his arm in reassurance. 

“You had a run-in with Pierce even before Tony did, Chris,” Bruce put in. “Maybe he thought you could be useful to HYDRA.”

“Not from the way I talked to him,” I shot back. “The important thing is that they failed. Have they tried to launch the carriers yet, Tony?”

Back at the computer, he shook his head. “In pre-flight mode, though, so we should get some boom-boom soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet y'all know where Tony got that serape that Bruce is wearing in this chapter. :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head, explosively so, and the team starts working through the aftermath.

For a little while, nothing happened. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement among us to stay close. Pepper got her laptop and did some work. I made Bruce tea while he recuperated from Hulking out, and finished cleaning up the lab, with Clint’s help; then I started checking the media for action, and called the NYPD to apologize for the glass on the sidewalks at the foot of the tower. _It happens sometimes, Chief, when you have guys like Mr. Stark up here doing sciencey things. We are so sorry, and I promise, we will make him install stronger panes._ Thankfully, nobody had been hurt.

Then, everything began to happen, very quickly. I was skimming through twitter when I saw it. “Y’all, somebody just tweeted that Captain America is on the PA where they work. Got to be the Triskelion.” 

Tony pulled another holoscreen up and followed my lead. “Steve’s blowing the lid off ‘em,” he said as the tweeter reported Steve’s words exposing HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD and Pierce’s involvement. My chest clenched; Steve was a hero, but a dead one, if he was caught after this. While I retweeted the thread and hopped to other sites to spread the word, Tony suddenly said, “They’re initiating launch. Come on, baby virus, make daddy proud…yes!” He slapped the desk he stood at and spun around, delight on his face. “Only place those Star Destroyers are going now is Sanford and Son’s.”

Our exclamations of approval were interrupted by JARVIS. “Sir, Agent Romanoff has just contacted me with a request.”

“How’d she do that?” I cocked my head and peered up at the ceiling (not like JARVIS was there, of course), glad to hear Natasha was all right.

“I put him on all the Avengers’ phones,” Tony said, then glared at me. “Although given the way you and Potts keep throwing yourselves into melees, I probably need to set yours up too.”

“I’m not throwing myself at anything,” Pepper replied serenely from behind her keyboard.

“Except me.” Tony wiggled his eyebrows at her, and was answered by her usual indulgent roll of eyes his way. “What’s Itsy Bitsy need, J?”

“She advised me she has informed Alexander Pierce that she is in the process of dumping all of SHIELD’s files onto the internet, for the purpose of exposing HYDRA’s actions within the organization. In reality, she wishes to know if our download is completed. If so, she will proceed to delete SHIELD’s databases.” After a second, he added, “I took the liberty of informing her that I have sorted the files, and suggested that we might upload the HYDRA-linked data to the Avengers’ website and, shall we say, facilitate the wider dissemination of it.”

Clint let out a loud guffaw, and the rest of us joined in. Tony’s grin widened. “Nice. If we’re good, J, you and Natashalie carry on.”

I continued to monitor events online, and began to deal with lots of incoming demands for comment. ::Watch the official AvengersOnline.com website and associated social media accounts. More coming as we get the info!:: became my copypasta mantra.

More posts appeared, apparently from SHIELD agents and employees reporting evacuation of their building, shots fired, and aircraft strafing the structures. I hopscotched between twitter, tumblr, reddit, and smaller sites, and the conversation and debate were already intense. Just as I wondered how long it would take Natasha to get into SHIELD’s computers, and how she was doing it without two Alpha codes, a new post appeared on our site, headed simply: INTEL AGENCY INFILTRATED. It linked to massive files, and within seconds it was being reblogged and posted and tweeted across the planet, faster than I or anybody I knew could have done it…well, faster than any human I knew. “JARVIS!” I laughed. “You evil thing.”

“I built my skills posting cat memes,” the AI replied with his usual dry wit. “This is far more productive.”

“That’s my kid,” Tony commented proudly. 

Natasha and JARVIS’ work was already trending, and social media exploded. A few minutes later, something else did. Frantic tweets from SHIELD employees appeared, joined within moments by news media reports of a major blast at the offices of a division of the Department of Homeland Security. From accounts and phone photos that began to pop up, much of the structure was gone. “They had a kill switch,” Tony groaned, staring at his screens. “Probably in one of the helicarriers, to destroy evidence if something went wrong, They didn’t expect something this big to go wrong, but the switch still activated, or was activated, because at this point HYDRA doesn’t care who they kill. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!”

Tony looked about ready to throw something, until Clint went over and touched his arm. “Not your fault, shellhead,” he scolded. “You didn’t know.”

“And if you’d waited till they got airborne to dispatch them,” Bruce added, “they would’ve come down on the building, or in the river at best, without any warning. The building was evacuated, though. They had time to get clear. You gave them that time!”

When Tony’s eyes met mine, he still looked distressed, but also a bit puzzled, as though he couldn’t quite grasp why he wasn’t being blamed. ‘Uh…thanks, guys.” I just smiled and nodded, then glanced over at Pepper, who wore a similar little smile. Professionally, I was thrilled to see the team start to support each other emotionally as well as physically. Personally…if I accomplished nothing in my life beyond seeing the other Avengers back Tony this way, I’d die a happy little redneck. That was not, however, my intent; dying, I mean, not anytime soon.

Sure enough, the torrent of posts online told us that there were very few casualties, and I’d have bet most of them were HYDRA moles too indoctrinated to escape in time. Our worries, naturally, were for Steve and Natasha. While we waited, I posted a quick acknowledgement of events, set up a press conference for the next morning, and worked on a statement, fine-tuning it as more details came in. I also contributed to some online discussions, in an unofficial context, using a couple of anonymous accounts. As hours ticked by with no word from our friends, I finally had to log off when I replied to a commenter with ::CAPTAIN AMERICA IS A BIG DAMN HERO YOU FUCKING TROLL, AND DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT::.

“Glad Fury hired a spokesperson who’s never ever any less than impartial and perfectly balanced,” Clint teased, reading over my shoulder. I gave him a finger, but accompanied it with a grin. Nobody in the lab really relaxed until nearly dark, when Natasha texted Clint that she and Steve’s friend Sam were fine. Steve himself was in the hospital, which said volumes in itself for what he must have been through. Tony was all for flying down to DC immediately, but we persuaded him to rest and go in the morning.

By then, things were, shall we say, even more interesting. Law enforcement had begun poring through the HYDRA docs, finding all sorts of lovely incriminating tidbits and acting on them. When I flipped on the TV while getting dressed for the presser, and was greeted by the sight of the odious Senator Stern doing the perp-walk in handcuffs, the noise that came out of my throat was one I usually only make during really good sex (aka, not since Rhodey and I quit dating). I tried not to look too jubilant while meeting with the press corps and giving them a concise but thorough timeline. Admittedly, I tweaked it just a bit, to convey the impression that Steve and Nat had been working on exposing HYDRA all along, but with good reason. 

Tony arrived at the hospital in Washington first thing, and promptly messaged us that Fury was there, his usual sneaky self, in disguise. (It was a safe bet nobody would interrupt a conversation in Captain America’s hospital room, with an Iron Man suit standing guard at the door.) The not-so-late director of SHIELD confirmed what Steve had texted, that Pepper’s and my repeated pointing to communications gone awry had led him to dig deep and find the corruption festering in his organization far sooner than he might otherwise have. With the files of the loyal agents safe, SHIELD could rebuild, though on an even more secret level; he wouldn’t even tell Tony who the new director was to be, and swore all the Avengers and ancillaries like me to secrecy about his own status (alive, that is). The team would still be officially affiliated with SHIELD, but more autonomous in its activities.

Fury also, Tony reported, wanted Steve to leave DC and get out from under SHIELD’s thumb, preferably move into the tower with his teammates. That wasn’t Nick’s decision, needless to say, nor was any moving going to happen for Steve right away. When the world’s only super-soldier landed in the hospital for more than a couple of hours, there had to be ample reason, such as multiple broken bones, second-degree burns, and a nice case of pneumonia from an unplanned dunk in the Potomac. He had been found unconscious by the river’s edge, shield by his side, though nobody was quite sure how he got there.

Nat planned to stay in Washington for now and keep an eye on Steve. Between her, the hospital staff (who met with Tony’s approval), and Steve’s buddy Sam, Tony felt Cap was in good hands and came home fairly pleased. A few days later, he was less pleased when news broke that Natasha had been subpoenaed by Congress. “We should’ve popped popcorn,” Clint griped as we all gathered around the big TV on the common floor. Pepper and I heartily approved of Nat’s outfit; basic black always looks good on her. Stark Industries’ newest employee, Maria Hill, joined us, and concurred.

As the Intelligence Committee’s chairman started to gavel the session to order, a ruckus could be heard outside the chamber doors, just before they swung open and Iron Man strode in. “He does love to make an entrance,” Bruce noted mildly around his cup of chai.

I giggled out loud when Tony stepped out of the suit, with a smile like a shark about to eat everybody who gave him or his Itsy Bitsy any shit. “By now, you would think congresscritters would know better, wouldn’t you?” I said rhetorically.

Tony gave Nat a thumbs up, beamed at every camera in sight (he has this sixth sense for where they are, I swear) and settled quietly in the audience to watch her eviscerate the generals and senators who challenged her. She pointed out that no, America’s intelligence apparatus was not wrecked; it was cleared of treasonous and dangerous elements, and would be overhauled as was needed. “The late Director Fury planned ahead. All that was exposed was proof of HYDRA’s perfidy. Information on loyal agents and clean ops is still secure and will stay that way.”

For someone accustomed to working in the shadows, I thought Nat acquitted herself splendidly. When a senator issued a veiled threat to her freedom, though, Tony just could not contain himself any longer. “You’re not gonna put her in prison,” he said and stood. “You’re not gonna put any of us in prison. Know why?”

The chairman banged his gavel. Amid the renewed buzz of the onlookers, he said, “You’re out of order, Mr. Stark, but we might have expected that from you. Do enlighten us.”

“Because you need us,” Tony said bluntly. “Yeah, the world is a vulnerable place, and yeah, maybe we helped make it that way. But we're also the ones best qualified to defend it.”

Natasha nodded, and got up from the witness table. “If you want to arrest me,” she told the committee, ”you'll know where to find me. Avengers Tower, New York City.”

With that, Tony offered her his arm, and they walked out, with the Iron Man suit tromping along behind like a faithful retainer. “Mmm,” Pepper broke the silence in the common room. “I’d better be sure housekeeping hits her floor before she and Tony get back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonderful photomanip I found on tumblr--here's what Steve saw in the hospital, the morning after the fight. :) 
> 
> https://imgur.com/gallery/45oyZxR


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The SHIELD files begin to yield valuable info. Steve moves into the tower, and at a team celebration, he reveals a shocking secret.

Not a soul said another word against Natasha or Steve. in fact, in the days that followed, the public rose resoundingly behind Captain America and the Black Widow, and the rest of the Avengers benefited from the positive feedback as well. That, in turn, made my work load a bit easier. With SHIELD officially in limbo at the moment, I wondered what my employment status actually was, but Tony dismissed any concern. “We put Fury’s right hand on the SI payroll, and we know she’s staying in contact with him. We’ll just put you on too. That way, no highly-placed jerkoffs can try to order you around anymore. Plus, maybe Pepper’ll finally get over being mad at me for letting him hire you away from her.”

He did do that, when he wasn’t sifting through the data dump from what he nicknamed Shieldra. Among other gems, he unearthed reports from SHIELD agents planted by HYDRA, documenting actions taken against the Avengers Initiative. “We were right all along,” Pepper told me after he shared that with her. “The messages Bruce left for the rest of the team after Malibu, the emails Tony sent telling them they were welcome to move into the tower after it was rebuilt, they disposed of all of them. And I was right about the supposed message from Tony telling Fury to stay out of the Mandarin fight, too. There’s a note confirming that it was a fake.”

I was not surprised, and I even started to wonder about one other very large instance of miscommunication. Steve and I had put his abysmal briefings by SHIELD down to incompetence, for lack of proof to the contrary; but maybe it had been deliberate. I didn’t know how much he had told Tony about that, though, and I didn’t want to wade into a mud puddle blindly. With the idea of a small fishing expedition, I headed for the lab and found Tony slurping an odd-colored smoothie and scanning three holoscreens at once. “Any interesting nuggets from the data mine?” I asked. “Pep told me HYDRA was responsible for all the messages among the team that never got where they were supposed to go.”

“Yeah, their secretarial skills are severely lacking,” Tony deadpanned while he flicked from one screen to the next. “They deleted or altered things right and left, just to fuck up functionality on all levels possible. Looks like somebody was especially interested in screwing the Avengers Initiative over from the jump, though. Fury’s got eyes crawling through here piecing together intel on the locations of HYDRA bases, so we’ll have plenty to do for a good while, tracking those cells and taking them out; but since he’s got that nailed down, I’m interested in exactly what they may have done…to…”

His voice trailed off, and his mouth slowly began to drop open. “Uh oh,” I said. “That look is making me suddenly very afraid.”

Still staring at the nearest screen, Tony said, “It—looks like a HYDRA mole was put in charge of some of Steve’s orientation after he came out of the ice.”

Before I realized it, “Oh, that explains it,” rolled out of my mouth. 

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Explains what?”

“Steve and I were talking one night, and he said you weren’t at all what he expected from his SHIELD briefings. Come to find out, they didn’t tell him much of anything useful about you, not even that you were in Afghanistan.”

“And you told him…what?” he said slowly, and I spared a few brain cells to give profound thanks for my resolution to share nothing with Steve that I considered sensitive or personal.

“Just what every damn body else on the planet knows,” I told him. “Gave him my Vanity Fair articles to read, showed him some news coverage and a couple of your pressers. It struck us both weird that all of that was left out. Smelled funky to me, if I’m honest. Now it makes sense. HYDRA knew you and he would be leaders among the Avengers, so they were bound and determined to keep you from understanding or trusting each other.”

Tony still looked unnerved, but as usual, he set about trying to cover his emotions with a thick layer of snark. “They had rotten taste too. I found a listing of what they used, all negative or neutral at best. Dumb dicks didn’t even show him my best sex tapes. I’d remedy that myself, but Pep would kill me. Worse yet, after I was dead, she’d dump me and date him.”

I mock-banged my head on the desk top. “Please. Steve thinks she’s the bee’s knees. Yes, he says it that way. If Pepper wanted him, she could’ve dumped you months ago and had him. I don’t think he’s her type, though.”

“Oh? And pray tell, what is her type?” 

“You,” I said simply, and with a big smile. “Be sure to tell him about this, though. I think it’s been bothering him. Are you still going down in the morning to get him?”

He did, was gone all day, and came back that evening in the quinjet with Steve and his stuff. “Spangle your stripes and watch your language, people, Cap’s moving in!” Tony announced when they strode in. “Not because Fury said so. Because this is the safest place. The hell with SHIELD, or what’s left of it.”

Steve was not arguing. “Even Fury, trying to do what was best, fell into the trap of lying; sometimes I’m not even sure he knew he was. I’ve had it with the bureaucratic BS. At least here, I know I can trust my teammates, when I’m not sure of anybody else.”

Clint and Bruce greeted him with back slaps. Pepper arrived as I was hugging him, welcomed him with a hug of her own, and after one significant sweeping gaze at the pitifully few boxes and bags of gear and personal effects he had brought, pulled me aside to plan a shopping trip so he wouldn’t look pathetic out in public and embarrass the rest of us. At least, that’s what I told him, to the accompaniment of hoots and teasing from the other Avengers. “Steve, as the public rep of the team, it’s my duty to tell you, I just can’t let you go around town with your ass half hanging out of a pair of ratty old camo pants, and a SHIELD t-shirt that’s like three sizes too small.” (I conveniently neglected to mention that if the team’s twitter followers were any indication, most of them didn’t mind the too-small t-shirt all that much, and would probably appreciate any Cap-ass hanging out. It was the principle of the thing, though. The Avengers had an image to maintain, more or less, and the man needed some real clothes!) Who knew Captain America could blush like that? It was adorable.

We had planned a welcome-home cookout on the roof, and although Natasha hadn’t yet moved in, she had committed in front of TV cameras, so we figured she would turn up sooner or later. As it happened, sooner was really sooner. When I ran back downstairs to grab another tray of hamburger patties after Thor’s unannounced but much-appreciated arrival, she was in the team kitchen working over a large bowl. I let out a yelp of surprised delight, and was surprised even more when she came to greet me with a little kiss on the cheek. 

“ _Shashlik_ ,” she said, showing me where she had mashed up a couple of patties with a fragrant blend of spices. “Traditionally in Russia it’s made with marinaded chunks of mutton, but the market was out, so needs must.” With that, she started rolling the ground beef into balls and threading them onto steel skewers alternating with chunks of onions and tomatoes.

“You would cook out with stuff you could use as a weapon if you had to,” I teased. 

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” I loaded her preparations onto my tray as she finished up and wiped her hands. “At least here, I’m fairly sure I’d only have to use them against outsiders.” It was as solid an expression of trust, in her own way, as Steve’s open statement earlier, and made me smile to myself as we headed topside.

Nat’s welcome around the grills was expanded when Sam Wilson, the ex-Army flier who had helped her and Steve in Washington, arrived too. He was friendly and witty, full of stories, and I liked him right away. The stories took a more serious turn after the meal, though, when everybody settled in around the big firepit, on lawn chairs or sitting on the rooftop itself, for a debriefing. Since Pepper and I had taken part in the defense of the tower, and I needed the full account of the fall of SHIELD for future media interactions, Tony insisted we both should stay, and we ended up flanking him on a wicker sofa.

It was a wild ride, listening as Steve, with Nat and Sam chiming in, recounted their experiences dodging rogue agents, following clues to Fury’s supposed murder, and unraveling HYDRA’s plot. Nat tried not to be too obvious in looking at Bruce with a hint of concern, when Steve explained how a HYDRA guy had (after they dropped him off a roof a couple of times; Project Falcon apparently revolved around some special flying gear, so Sam caught him) spilled the details about the would-be world rulers’ list of targets for assassination. I scooted a little closer to Tony, with another silent prayer of thanks for his safety; he made a small oof, and I noticed Pepper had squeezed in on his other side at the same time. 

It reminded me of Fury’s comment that he knew she and I would both walk through fire for Tony—which suddenly made my hair sit up. Why had it not occurred to me he might know about our exposure to Extremis? SHIELD had known Killian and Maya were experimenting with it, after all. If Fury knew, did the agency know? and if the agency knew, did HYDRA know? _Yikes. I’ve got to ask Tony to check the databases, and see if anything is documented._

Nat was talking when I tuned back into the conversation. “—Steve was thinking of sending the USB contents to you to crack, Tony, but when I checked it, the drive had a level 6 homing program. SHIELD would be able to track us within minutes using it, and anybody else we shared it with. We wanted to keep you guys out of the mess and relatively safe, until we had a better idea what we were dealing with.”

“Thanks for the effort,” Tony tossed back. “No damsels in distress in this tower, though. More like damsels causing distress.” Quickly he summarized the attack we had repelled, with glances of pride at Pep and me. The grins of approval from the other Avengers warmed my heart. I knew the team considered me practically one of them anyway, just with different skills, but knowing that if I had to, I could physically defend myself and my friends, could hold up my end and not be a liability, appealed to the part of me that was ferociously independent.

Steve’s description of the confrontation with a long-dead Nazi scientist uploaded into a computer sent chills down my back, as did their account of the assassin called the Winter Soldier, who sounded for all the world like an escapee from a horror movie, unstoppable and remorseless. More chilling, though, was the way Steve began to hesitate, to measure his words. Years in my field had taught me to pick up those subtle tells that said an interview subject was lying to me, or more importantly sometimes, when they weren’t telling the full truth. Steve was keeping something back. I didn’t know what, but he looked so uncomfortable doing it. I felt terrible for him. Then I had a thought: maybe whatever he wanted to say was for the team’s ears only.

“Wow,” I said when Steve finally halted. “Thank the Lord you all got through that mess in one piece.” Sam looked at me sharply and then nodded; looked like we spoke the same language where giving thanks was concerned. “I’m guessing there’s some intel you need to share with the team in confidential session, though, so I’d better leave now?”

Steve frowned like a puzzled small animal. “Are you sure you aren’t a mutant?” he asked. “Because sometimes I think you read people’s minds.” I shook my head with a laugh, and started to get up. “No, it’s okay, Chris, stay. It’s just…” He stammered a little, then looked around with an air of sudden resolve. “Something happened, and I gotta tell somebody, and I don’t trust anybody more than you buncha nincompoops.” The Brooklyn creeping out in his voice made me sit forward, ears pricked. This was important. “The Winter Soldier’s…I don’t know how, exactly, but…he’s Bucky.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve shares what little he knows about Bucky and HYDRA with the other Avengers, who pledge their support, and some unnerving additional leads with Tony. Tony delves deeper into the Shieldra database and learns about his dad's efforts to recreate the super-soldier serum, before discovering startling files and calling Steve in.

The bombshell rattled us all. Steve explained something I had never learned in my high school history class: when he had rescued Bucky and his squadron, the guys who became Captain America’s Howling Commandoes, his best friend had been subjected to experiments by the same Nazi scientist he and Nat had encountered decades later. “Zola helped Dr. Erskine, who made the serum I got. It looked like he was trying to replicate it—”

“Like half the damn lab rats over the past seventy years,” Tony grumbled under his breath.

“—and tested it on Bucky. Whatever Zola did to him then must have let him survive the fall later.”

“But you were frozen, Steve,” Bruce objected. “How could he have lived so long?”

Steve shook his head emphatically. “Dunno, but I wasn’t seein’ things. There’s no way I’d mistake him for anybody else.” He sighed. “If Buck’s out there someplace, I’ve got to find him. I got some free time comin’ up; guess I won’t be workin’ for SHIELD, not in the foreseeable future. I’m not givin’ up on the Avengers, though, if you still want me.”

“Oh, that.” Tony waved a hand. “We’ll have to think about it. I mean, a living legend who kinda lives up to his advance billing, the guy that got HYDRA running like an overturned ant farm? We might find some use for you, but you know, might not…” The tension in Steve’s face began to soften into a chuckle. Tony got up, went over to him and put out his hand. “You’re the boss, Cap. I just fix the gear. And…I’m a lot better at fixing things than people, but whatever I can do, to help you find your pal and get him straightened out, I’m in.”

There were nods all around. Steve’s eyes darted around the group, quiet under the sky by now full dark. “Thanks,” he finally got out. “Thank you, all of you.” He put a hand out, gripped Tony’s and stood.

“To find a lost brother,” Thor rumbled, “one would do anything. You know how I know this, Steven. We are with you.”

The fire in the pit started to die down, and people started drifting off to their apartments with quiet leave-takings. As usual, I passed out hugs as I went, to everybody interested. Still a little in shock over Steve’s revelations, I made a point of squeezing him tight. “Let me know what I can do to help you,” I told him. 

“The Winter Soldier’s got a scary record. If Bucky did half what he’s credited with… Chris, he didn’t know me. We were like brothers, all our lives, but he didn’t recognize me, or his own name…until right near the end, maybe, there was something in his eyes…” With a shaky exhalation, he returned my embrace. “Something’s wrong with him. HYDRA did something to make him that way. I wanna burn ‘em to the ground for that. And if, when I find him, it’s gonna take a lot to make people understand it wasn’t him, not really, who did those things. That’s when I’ll really need your help.”

“You got it.” Steve’s friend Sam came up just then; he was staying overnight in the guest room on Steve’s floor. I wished them both good night and slipped away, as Sam muttered something about owing Steve a twenty.

Things settled more over the following days. I set up a press conference to assure the public that the Avengers were still on the job, and that operatives were helping them track down the remnants of HYDRA. Since Natasha had had her say before Congress, and since Steve was the de facto team leader, I suggested he join me, and helped him compose a brief summation of the events surrounding the exposure of the corruption of SHIELD. He was understandably a bit nervous, but got through it fine and said my being right there helped. Who could have imagined me, farm girl, as Captain America’s emotional support?

True to form, Natasha moved in with no fanfare, and just started showing up for team things, dinners and movies and board games (yes, board games. None of them had much of a childhood, after all). Late one night I went to the team kitchen with a cup of hot tea, looking for sugar, and found her there. We sat for an hour or more, with no crafts to focus on, just swapping stories and sipping, and I even got an awkward one-arm hug when we parted. She began to join Pepper and me more regularly on the roof, too.

Several days after the cookout, I headed for Tony’s dungeon with a licensing request to present to him. it was mildly surprising to find ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ blaring on the sound system when I let myself in. “Bon Jovi?” I kidded. “Not quite the crunchy metal you usually listen to.”

“Hey, Bon Jovi rocks, on occasion,” Tony retorted from a table where he was working over a disassembled suit gauntlet. “Whatcha got for me, cornbread?”

“A proposal for a line of Avengers sex toys.”

Tony cackled. “They’re too late. I already set up a side company, not tied to SI, to handle that little merchandising bonanza. You don’t think you’re the only one prowling the internet to check out public opinion, do you? Depends on who’s okay with it, of course; Bruce and the big guy may have issues, although there appears to be a thirst out there for large green—I’m not judging, understand, to each their own, but hey, that’s a braver soul than me. Profits to go to the charity of the, ah, object’s choice, preferably something relevant like fighting sex slavery, LGBTQ supports, educational programs for STD prevention, that sort of thing. Don’t tell Pepper, or I’ll have nothing left to model with, not saying I’m planning to—”

His babble never ceased to entertain me, but just then I spied something lying at his work station, under where my framed cross-stitch of him hung, that took my attention totally away from any discussion, even of Hulk-size vibrators: several sheets of paper with drawings on them. The first was a pencil sketch of a tall, lanky male figure in black. An equipment belt wrapped around his lean waist, and a harness around his chest and over his shoulders. The lower part of his face was covered by a mask that reminded me of the bandanas outlaws in Western movies wore. The figure held a huge gun, and gazed out from the page with unnerving intensity. The most striking element of the picture, though, was the figure’s left arm; it looked metallic, almost like dragon scales, and bore a red star on the shoulder, the only point of color in the piece.

“Steve drew those,” Tony said when he traced the direction of my gaze. “Once I persuaded him I was serious about helping him look for his pal—and come on, what the fuck, why wouldn’t I, for crying out loud?—he sketched him from memory, in the Winter Soldier kit. Did you know he could draw like that? And he yelled at me for holding out on him when we sparred.”

“I knew he drew, but these are amazing.” The second drawing was head and shoulders only, a left side view in full color. It showed more detail of the chest harness and the mask, with long dark hair hanging down his back, and the plates of the strange prosthetic arm. 

The third and last of the drawings took my breath away. It was the same view as the second, but this time the figure’s head was turned to face the viewer straight on, and the mask was gone. Even with the wild loose hair, there was no mistaking the handsome face I’d gazed at, in history books and the quiet of my own room, since girlhood, or the penetrating stormy eyes. _Hello there, James Buchanan Barnes. So you’re alive._

I stacked the drawings in their original order, then noticed one other paper on the desk top. It was a printout of a New York newspaper’s front page, with a man’s picture prominently featured just below the headline: _Howard and Maria Stark Die In Car Accident_. “Steve brought that too,” Tony’s voice right in my ear startled me, though it was softer than moments before. “When he ran into that HYDRA bot, Zola, it flashed a lot of data past him. It took a few days for him to decompress and sort through it all—eidetic memory, what a trip, huh?—and once he did, he remembered seeing this. Don’t know what if anything it signifies. What with dad helping found SHIELD, it makes sense the octopussies would have taken an interest in what happened to him.”

He sounded like he was trying to avoid the obvious. “Or they could have had something to do with what happened to him and your mom,” I matched his soft tone.

“Yeah.” A little sigh escaped him. “It’s so weird…I spent years assuming dad got drunk and wrecked the car, and that may still be the case, but…it may not. I hate uncertainty. Steve even said he hated telling me, because there was no other evidence one way or the other. Still glad he did, though. JARVIS is going through the Shieldra files with a fine-tooth comb to find any references.”

I slipped my arm around him, and was pleased when he hugged me back. “Once you and JARVIS get that squared away, can y’all check and see if there are any notes about Extremis? Something Fury said, I’ve been thinking about it, and I may just be paranoid, but if he had any suspicions about Pepper or me, and he documented it in SHIELD records, then HYDRA could know it too.”

"Shit,” Tony gulped. “Yeah, definitely. We’ll find out. J, got anything on mom and dad yet?”

“I have found no direct references to Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s accident. However, I have come across some interesting citations regarding Mr. Stark’s work to recreate the super-soldier serum.”

“Come again?” Tony demanded with a scowl. In reply, data began to stream across the nearby screens. He shifted to scan it, and a look of absolute bewilderment swept over his face. “He did. This is insane. I had no idea. It wasn’t in any of his notes that I’ve seen—though all that shit I hauled back from the old house, there could be something in there. Got to go through those when I get a minute—ha. I better get on that inventing-time-travel thing.”

“He was trying too? Like all those lab rats you were trolling?” I poked him in the ribs, then went back to the table to pick up my tablet. 

“So it would appear. That’ll teach me to throw rocks, huh?” His gaze sharpened as he absorbed the information. “Not a lot of detail here, but there’s general description of tests conducted on various versions of his special sauce, early animal tests—ooh. Not good outcomes, there. Mostly fatal.” I winced. “Good thing the SHIELD files are protected. If PETA saw this they’d probably crucify me since he’s conveniently not around to.…whoa, he actually got to a human trial stage! Single-subject design, later version of the juice. No Captain Muscles kind of results, though. ‘No super-strength or other enhancements, no change in cognitive performances’…so, did it do anything? Cure bad breath, or acne or…oh, here; ‘positive results limited to increased endurance and accelerated recuperative rates’. Interesting. No keeling over dead, either, which is always a plus.” Mouth screwed to one side in thought, he flipped through the pages hovering in the air. “Huh, here’s a link…ooh, looks like Winter Soldier program files. Aaaand down the HYDRA rabbit hole we go!” He hummed and mumbled and poked at things, and then froze. “J, can you check the status of these files?”

“Already taken down from the web site, sir,” JARVIS offered. “No indication that anyone has downloaded them. I rather doubt public researchers have dug this deeply yet.”

“Thanks, pal, you are a life-saver. By which I do not mean you are round with a hole in the middle, of course. Is Cap here? In the tower, I mean.”

“Captain Rogers is currently in his quarters, sir.”

“Could you ask him to come down here? I got something here he may need to see…Chrissy, babe, I don’t mean to throw you out on your ass but—”

“No, it’s okay, Tony. I have to get back to work anyway. Did you find something on Bucky?”

“Could be.” There was a studied calm to his expression, but his eyes flickered around and widened. He was looking at something that shook him. I squeezed his shoulder and slipped out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cookies for everybody who knows where Tony’s comment about Bon Jovi came from. lol
> 
> Steve’s drawings of Bucky look somewhat like these:
> 
> http://reducto1art.tumblr.com/post/88856433082/reducto1-winter-soldier-sketch-d
> 
> https://www.etsy.com/listing/207792162/winter-soldier-bucky-sebastian-stan 
> 
> https://www.theartofgard.com/listing/280960974/the-winter-soldier-bucky-11x17-art-print


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected arrival in New York complicates Chrissy's life.

The next time I saw Steve was several hours later. He was walking slowly down a hallway on the common floor, headed for the elevator. Tony was with him, and they were talking quietly, arms around each other’s shoulders, dark head and fair bent close together. Steve straightened when the elevator doors opened, caught my eye and raised a hand before he hopped on. It was just enough eye contact for me to see that his were red. I started to hurry to catch him, but the door closed. “Is he all right?” I asked Tony, who nodded. 

“Think so. We, well, JARVIS, found some documentation on the Winter Soldier protocols, videos and records, and then we traced it and found more and…damn. It’s no wonder Barnes didn’t recognize Steve. HYDRA had a regular-ass laundromat system set up, wiping his brain after every mission, sticking him in cryostasis in between times. They made him into a flesh and blood robot. He couldn’t have had enough independently functioning synapses to ask for a glass of milk.” He shuddered a little. “Steve…didn’t take it well, and I didn’t want him to go off alone right away.”

“Good thinking,” I approved. “You look pretty shaken up too, though, hot rod.”

“I’m fine,” he said with a flash of his public smile. Translated, he was not fine. I fixed him with a steady glare, and after a few seconds he wilted under it. “It just—it reminded me a little of Afghanistan, okay? A few go-rounds in the torture chamber, and if I hadn’t had a plan, I would’ve been ready to cave, pardon the pun. This, what Barnes has been going through, for years—Steve wants to kill millions right about now, and dammit, I completely approve.”

“I’m kind of glad you sent me out of the lab,” I told him. “I might have broken my toe kicking something. How—how could people do that—”

“To get what they want,” Tony said simply. His dark eyes were grave, totally serious for one of those rare occasions. “HYDRA will do any damn thing to get what they want, never forget that.” Then his face lit anew. “They’re tough. But we’re tougher.”

I held fast to those words and that sentiment in the ensuing weeks. JARVIS was scanning the globe in search of Bucky, but he couldn’t look in places where there were no security cameras, so Steve vanished for days at a time bound for the most isolated and desolate of locales. He was often accompanied by Sam Wilson, whose Falcon flying rig was eye-popping. The next time Rhodey dropped into the tower, he and Sam greeted each other with delight and spent most of the day alternately talking tech and talking smack about each other’s military branches.

Sam lived in Washington, and worked as a counselor for veterans, when not getting sucked into superheroing; but when he went on reconnaissance runs with Steve, he often crashed in a guest bedroom on Steve’s floor. The day Rhodey visited, Sam and Steve had just gotten back from a quick trip to check out a possible Winter Soldier sighting in Saskatchewan. Sam was about to head back to DC when I walked through on the way to the team kitchen with both hands full of jars of seasoning. Immediately, Rhodey refused to let Sam leave until after supper. 

Sam was skeptical, but confessed later on that my beef stew and cornbread was the best meal he had had since the last time he had visited his mama. I made him promise to set up a meeting, or at least get me her email address if she had one, so we could swap recipes. “It was hard for me to believe what Steve told me, how a bunch of dysfunctional superheroes made such a great team and good roommates. The way to anybody’s heart is through their stomach, though, so—” he gestured at the washtub-sized pots soaking in the kitchen sink—“this explains a lot.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” I laughed. “Now c’mon, Tony’s about to embarrass the heck out of Steve, I think. He claims to have found security footage of Steve handing an elevator packed full of dirty agents their asses, just before all hell broke loose at SHIELD. He refused to let the rest of us see it until Steve got back so he could ‘appreciate’ it. You’ve got to stay for that at least. And too, there’s a vat of homemade chocolate pudding in the walk-in fridge, and I expect you to help us eat it.”

We headed for the common area and I settled in beside Rhodey, surprised when Sam sat down on my other side. “That clown there was the biggest surprise,” he said under his breath, with a nod toward Tony, at the front of the room expounding on the setup to the video clip. “I was interested in meeting him, for that brain and all the stuff he’s built and Iron Man, but y’know, Tony Stark the asshole is who the world knows, so ‘hard to deal with’ was what I expected at the very least. I lost a few bucks to Cap over that.”

“Asshole makes good camouflage.” I smiled at Tony almost vibrating with excitement as Steve blushed furiously. “Out there, he needs the protective coverage. Here, he doesn’t.”

Sam just nodded. We all cheered as we watched the Captain America on the big screen give a brief clinic on beatdowns in a confined space. The Cap in the room hid his bright red face until he registered our applause, then emerged with his typical aw-shucks grin. Sam led the standing ovation before we all returned to the kitchen to grab our desserts. Steve presided over the tub of pudding, and put everybody in the floor when he looked around before he started filling bowls and asked dryly, “Before we get started, does anybody want to get out?”

That laugh was a rock to cling to, the next day, when I had to deal with more pouty right-wing nut jobs Steve had offended (accidentally on purpose), and then the sex toy company’s CEO mad that Tony had beaten him and everybody else to trademarking any and all variations of all the team’s names for use in any adult entertainment contexts. Mostly, that was to keep the other Avengers from being disrespected by some jackass with a video app and a dirty mind, but I wasn’t going to tell this ass-clown that.

Given all that, by the time my phone rang that afternoon from yet another unfamiliar number, I was done. My answering was, despite my best efforts, a tad snappish, but all that melted away at the sound of the voice on the other end. “Hello luv! Here I was hopin’ you'd be chuffed to hear from me. Sounds as if you’d as soon tell me to get stuffed!” 

“Simon! Oh hon, I’m so sorry. It’s been a…a day, shall we say, and let it go at that. How in the world are you? More to the point, where in the world are you?”

The laugh I’d missed hearing was bright even through the phone. “Just a bimble away from you, I expect. I’m in New York! Snookered the bosses at Auntie Beeb into shipping me across the pond for a spell. Mostly to see you, if I’m honest. If you aren’t knackered, let me come ‘round and take you out for a nosh. I could murder a slice or two of good New Yorker pizza.”

I gave him directions to my favorite pizza joint, within walking distance of the tower, and met him there. My heart leaped to see the familiar sandy hair and broad smile, and those light eyes with their wicked glint. Simon’s embrace was as all-encompassing as I remembered, too, and the time flew by while we ate and reminisced. He walked me back to the tower, with some reluctance. “I could spend the next week or so with you, just catching up,” he sighed. 

“Duty calls,” I reminded him with a fond smile. “I’ll find out how to go about getting you cleared to come up, quickly, I hope. How long are you going to be in town?”

“A good long while. Perhaps permanently.” He chuckled at my bulging eyes. “I may have begged.” I squealed and hugged him again. “So, let’s see about that visit to the heights, shall we? Unless,” his voice dropped and he snagged my wrist in his grasp, “you’re more eager to visit the depths. I could keep you there for…ever, really.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m sure you could. Let me remind you though, I do have a real life, and you wouldn’t like me half as much if I didn’t.”

“Debatable,” he disputed, but sent me on my way with a kiss and a promise to call. Simon’s brain and wit were addictive, but I had allowed myself to forget the main reason I hadn’t pursued him across the Atlantic. Hopefully he wouldn’t start all that possessive shit again.

I shared the news with the girls that night on the tower roof. Pepper was delighted at the prospect of an old flame rekindling. “You spend all your time working or hanging around here. Get out and live a little!” 

Natasha was quietly supportive, and even Maria agreed. “All work and no play, you know how that goes. I know I need to be taking my own advice. At least I have you guys now.” 

She took a sip of her drink, her face contemplative. She had been frankly surprised when Pepper started inviting her up to the roof, but with encouragement, Maria started to relax. On occasion, she even passed along word from Fury, and we sent greetings back. I think I totally baffled her the night I casually asked her to let him know I kept him in my prayers, and even more so when a week or so later she brought a message to me that he greatly appreciated my support. 

“Y’all are trying to get me in trouble,” I started with good humor, when my phone buzzed. It was Simon. ::where are you girlie? I’m waiting::

::oh hon, prior engagement. We’ll get together tomorrow::

::so you like your prior engagement better than me? sod it, then::

::chill, sweetie. Thai tomorrow for lunch?::

I could almost see his pout as he signed off. The next day over noodles, he argued, “I’m not trying to have you on. You’ve always worked yourself into a hole, and from where I stand it’s gotten even worse since you fell in with this lot. I’m only thinking of you, luv!”

Maybe he was right. As much as I loved my job, I couldn’t live my job. I spent the rest of that day with Simon, showing him around town. Near dinnertime, I suggested I text the girls and see if any of them could meet us for a bite, but Simon insisted he wanted to give me his undivided attention. We ended up back at his still sparsely furnished apartment, and I stayed the night. Sad to say, as solicitous as Simon was in most matters, he tended to focus on one thing in bed, and deflated once he got that. I found myself lying there missing the lively, spirited give and take of sex with Rhodey. Hell, Tony drunk off his ass with his head between my legs was more fulfilling. Not that I’d tell anybody that, except maybe Tony.

While I refused to let my work tasks slip, I did get permission to bring Simon up to the common floor of the tower and meet the team. He was his usual charming self, flirting with Pepper and carefully polite with Nat (I suspected her reputation preceded her) but hauled me off into a corner to complain about my behavior. “What?” I demanded. “I hug people. You know that!”

“Bloody hell, Christine, think of your image. Any man jack’ud think you were shagging the lot of them!”

I rolled my eyes and blew it off. A little jealousy, even if it’s ridiculous, can be amusing, and balm to one’s ego. Surely he’d get a clue; he wasn’t stupid. The clue, alas, did not get gotten, and the amusing jealousy morphed into a full-time suspiciousness in the following days and weeks. Simon got annoyed when I checked my phone while we were out, wanting my every thought to be of him. When I explained that since the Avengers were on call 24/7, I as their public face was too, he raged, “Blimey, duck, they’re taking advantage of you! I’ve—heard things, through some of my contacts overseas, about them. That Romanoff woman, for one, gives ‘dodgy’ a whole nother level. The shyte she’s done would leave you gutted. If she didn’t gut you in reality, first. And Captain America isn’t the pure soul people think, and Stark, well, who has to go there? You say they trust you, but they won’t let you give me their demned password to their secret clubhouse. When they had you cooking for them all last week, they wouldn’t even let me come up. Doesn’t that tell you summat about ‘em? If they trusted you like you think they do, they’d trust your judgement. If I had my druthers, you’d move in here with me—it’s near enough to your work as no matter, but you’d be out from under their thumbs.” 

“Si, honey, they work under such incredible pressure. Team meals have gotten to be a time for decompression, a small thing that’s just for them. And you know how I love to cook; they most certainly are not forcing me to do it.” I argued with him, but inside, I wondered. Simon didn’t know the risk of living in the tower; I’d never told him about the HYDRA attack. It was totally understandable that the Avengers live looking over their shoulders, but maybe I shouldn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: a dicey relationship begins in this chapter, including some hints at overpossessive and abusive behavior.
> 
> Holler if you need any Brit/US translation. I think Simon's lines are pretty comprehensible in context.
> 
> Here's how I picture him looking, and yes, that is who you think it is. LOLOL.
> 
> https://www.ibtimes.com.au/sites/au.ibtimes.com/files/2017/04/13/jude-law.jpg


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy's rekindled relationship with Simon takes a darker turn. Her girlfriends support her, but she makes an unexpected discovery that threatens to blow things up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks and love to all readers and commenters! I'm so glad y'all are enjoying the wild ride through my brain.
> 
> FYI, my mom passed suddenly on Monday so I'm out of pocket all this week. I'm throwing the next chapter out here and hopefully will be back online by the weekend. Please don't hate me for the bit of a cliffhanger at the end...
> 
> ETA, the trigger warning of the previous chapter applies to this one too.

The thought of giving up my place, not being around my friends, was an almost physical hurt. Being with Simon was pulling me further from them, though, as hard as I fought it. He pouted until I cancelled my next planned cook-fest. He complained he had made dinner reservations, so I had to reschedule a late afternoon press conference after a mission that had almost gone very badly (and wasn’t there for Pepper to lean on when Tony came back with a wrecked suit and fractured ribs). 

Simon had always been a little overprotective. In fact, I secretly blamed him a little for my strong reaction against helicopter boyfriends in the years since we had broken up. Now, though, he was even worse, and I didn’t know why. I tried to talk to him, to ask what was up with him, but he always managed to twist what I said, and try to put the blame back on me. As much as he complained and found fault, though, I drew the line when he tried to pin things on my friends. I’d known Pepper and Tony for nearly a half dozen years, and I would have staked my life on the fact that they cared about me (had done so, in fact) and I’d lived with the rest of the team for long enough that I knew them and trusted them implicitly. Why was Simon so mistrustful? Why was he trying to pull and push and separate me from them?

“Simon McGann wants to control you, Chris,” Maria said bluntly one night as the girl squad sat around the tower’s lobby bar. “I’ve seen it before. I’ve had men try it on me before.”

“But why?” I said. “Is he jealous of my job? It’s not like I get a lot of personal attention from it. Being the face and voice of the Avengers, I try to keep the spotlight on the information, not on me.”

“Maria’s right,” Natasha agreed. “It’s not healthy, and can be unsafe. He wants you all to himself. If he can’t have you, he may not want anybody else to. Didn’t you say you told him you had a meeting with law enforcement, just so we could meet?” 

Pepper set her glass down with a thump. “Chrissy, you didn’t tell me that. If you’re having to lie to him to spend time with your friends, that is not good. He needs to have boundaries set, and now, before something bad happens.”

“Like this?” Simon’s voice sounded from across the bar as he stalked over to our table. “I had a hunch you were going behind my back.”

“I shouldn’t have to ‘go behind your back’ to hang out with my girlfriends,” I snapped up at him. “You don’t own me. I have a life. I have work and people that I love.”

“Then you don’t love me,” he hissed and started to lean down, but found his way blocked by Nat’s hand, holding a small but deadly-looking knife. He looked shocked, then his eyes shot over to me, as though to say ‘see, I told you the Black Widow was a danger, are you going to let this happen’. 

I crossed my arms. “Please don’t, Nat. It’ll make a mess that Tony’ll have to pay to get cleaned up. Not like he can’t afford it, but I hate to put him to the trouble.” Nat moved her hand just a fraction, and Simon stumbled back from the table top, with something almost like hatred in his eyes. “Are you drunk, Simon?” I asked with real concern. “Let me call you a cab.”

“You’re coming with me, chickie.”

I stood. So did the other three women. “Nope, I’m going home.” He tried to grab my arm. “Really? You think we’re going there in public? Act like you got some damn sense, boy. Go home. We’ll talk tomorrow, if you can behave like a civilized person. If not, we won’t.” They were brave words, but my knees shook as I stormed out of the bar and through the lobby to the private elevator. Thank the Lord, my squad surrounded me. “Something is not right with him,” I muttered once the doors closed.

“Maybe he’s guilty,” Pepper suddenly said. “Sometimes people accuse others of things they’re actually doing, you know.”

“True.” Maria added. “He could be seeing somebody else on the side, but not want to lose you.”

“He’s definitely going to lose me if he keeps this shit up,” I grumbled.

“Might not be such a big loss.” Natasha put up her hands when I turned to her. “Sorry! You know I’m not the person to turn to for relationship advice.”

“But you’re most assuredly the one who’d shank a guy doing me wrong,” I said with a grin. 

“I’ll help hide the body,” Maria threw in.

“And I’ll expedite the paperwork to purchase the land so nobody ever finds it,” Pepper finished. 

I got off the elevator giggling after a group hug (the first one we had had, I thought, which was great progress for Natasha in particular), but I sobered and mentally went over the events of the evening and the past weeks. Maybe Simon _was_ two-timing me. If so, if he was seeing somebody else on the side and didn’t know how to tell me, it wasn’t all that big a deal; but I needed to know. Then I could go to him and tell him it was okay, and begin to take back the bits of my life he had chipped away.

By the next morning, I had half a dozen pathetic voicemails from Simon, pleading with me to forgive him. I studiously ignored them in favor of plowing through two days’ worth of emails that had gone unanswered thanks to my current personal issues. That had to stop, and stop now. A sustained push got me caught up, and then I dropped by Pepper’s office. “I’m going over to Simon’s and try to talk things out with him. Call me paranoid, but I kind of wanted somebody to know where I’d be.”

“Smart,” she approved. “Chrissy, I don’t think—well, I don’t want to think he would do anything to hurt you on purpose, but he might lose his temper. If he does, get out. And remember, you have JARVIS on your phone now! Even if you can’t talk, hit that icon. I had Tony set it up to alert both him and me. JARVIS will listen in, relay any information we need, and track your location.”

“Overkill. Typical Tony,” I jested but hugged her. “I’ll be fine, Pep, I promise. Don’t worry.”

I picked up some cookies at our favorite bakery (and managed to resist the impulse to buy the ones freshly iced with Avengers logos) then took the subway to Simon’s. His apartment was in Yorkville, a posh uptown neighborhood. Apparently the BBC paid a lot better than Vanity Fair ever did.

Simon answered my knock, looking so distressed that I had to hug him. “I’m so glad you came. I was afraid…so afraid I’d mucked everything up…” At his small shiver, I held him even tighter, real concern stirring in my heart. 

“Honey, it’s okay, we’ll work things out,” I told him. “Don’t be so upset!”

“We have a lot to talk about, but I slept that drunk off half the bloody day, and I just got back from meeting with a contact. I’m biscuit-arsed. Give me a few to have a shower? Then we can have our chin-wag.”

“Absolutely. Go clean your grimy ‘arse’ up and we’ll talk. I’ll sit in here and play Angry Birds.” I gave him a reassuring smile and a smack on the butt. Looking immeasurably relieved, he headed for the bathroom while I pulled out my phone. Instead of booting up a video game, though, I pulled up the unobtrusive brain icon that was a direct line to my AI pal, and kept it handy while I looked around for any clues to Simon’s strange behavior.

His jacket hanging over the back of the sofa was an obvious place to start. The pockets held assorted receipts from expensive bars and restaurants. Could be meeting with contacts; that’s what he said he just got home from doing, after all. None of them were dated today, though. In fact, every one of them was timestamped in the late, late night hours, and dated on days I knew we had not been together. At least two of them were nights I remembered for certain Simon had begged off going out to a show or to eat, complaining of fatigue or a headache, and said he was going home and to bed. And the most recent one was the night before, after I had left the tower bar with my friends, when he was supposedly shit-faced and stumbling home. 

It could be simply the unpredictable nature of journalism. Or it could be that he was lying to me. I replaced the slips and sat down on the couch, pondering whether and how to ask him, while I idly pushed the magazines on his coffee table here and there with a finger. A spiral bound steno pad lay among them. I flipped it open and suppressed a delighted little noise of recognition and welcome. 

When Simon and I had first begun dating, he had been fascinated with serial killers. Being a Southern California stringer for the BBC at the time, he was researching the local ones, and was especially interested in the unsolved Zodiac case and the killer’s ciphered messages taunting police and reporters. Discovering the one message that had been decoded intrigued us both. The next thing I knew, Simon had learned the cracked cipher and was leaving me notes written in it, so out of self-preservation (and for fun) I had to learn it too. It tickled me to see he was still using it after these years. I eyeballed the combinations of letters and symbols, fished a pen and tiny notebook out of my purse and decided to entertain myself while I waited for him. _Okay, how much can I remember…right angle to the left, T; right angle to the right, A; a black square is L, and…_

The first rows of the page I randomly chose contained a list of European towns interspersed with odd commentary, and numbers that looked like they might be GPS coordinates. Curious, I skipped a few lines and resumed my memory exercise near the bottom of the page, but the location list seemed to continue. NOVIGRAD SOKOVIA RESEARCH BASE—MIRACLE TWINS, it read. _Whoa. Sounds like Simon’s on the trail of something big_. I didn’t want to pry, but I wasn’t direct competition for stories anymore; so maybe I’d mention I’d noted the pad and tease him gently about our old secret language, and see if he opened up.

The sound of running water stopped, but I couldn’t resist checking out one more page, near the back of the pad. The digit 6 was one of several symbols for an A, the square with a dot in the middle was an S, the letter K was actually another S…hm. 

ASSET RETRIEVAL MISSION: ASSET BELIEVED IN USA. RECAPTURE OPTIONS: SONIC TASER SHOULD DISABLE BUT ONLY 5-8 MIN MAX. SHUTDOWN WORD EXISTS BUT NOT AVAILABLE. TERMINATE IF UNABLE TO SUBDUE.

This…did not sound like a journalist’s notes chasing a hot story. This sounded like instructions given to an operative. My thumb hovered over the panic button on my phone screen. Maybe I was overreacting, just paranoid from all the time spent with the Avengers. 

The line below read: TONY STARK: ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH CONTACT, TERMINATE IF OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS. IF NOT, PROCEED WITH PROJECT PANCAKE.

Not paranoid. Definitely not paranoid. I put the pad hastily down as I heard light footsteps behind me, stuffed pen and notebook into my purse, and opened my mouth to deliver a plausible reason to leave, so I could regroup.

Suddenly, a white-hot jolt of pain rippled through my body like a lightning strike. My hand spasmed, and the phone fell to the floor. I had no idea if I had accidentally hit the JARVIS icon or not. I went to bend over and get it, tensing against the pain—and could not move. Every muscle seemed frozen in place. I tried to call out to Simon, but only a breathy squeak came out of my half-open mouth; then another, when his voice unexpectedly appeared right at my ear. “I’m right sorry you did that, you naughty girl,” he scolded gently and tapped on the incriminating notebook. Two small round objects were nestled in his palm, a faint blue glow emanating from them, and he laid them down on the table top.

I intended to turn my head toward him, to apologize and assure him I wasn’t trying to scoop any story he was secretly chasing; but even my neck wouldn’t move, and I slumped back into the couch cushions, boneless and unable to budge. “This could have been so bloody simple, Christine. So easy. You’ve been using the military wireless hack I sent you for years now, and I’ll wager you never told anybody, did you? Had to be a good little gel, else you wouldn’t have gotten on with that lot of slags in Stark’s high and mighty tower.” 

I could feel his hand when he patted me on the leg in a grotesque parody of comfort. “I thought you might’ve gotten off the Sweet Polly Purebred train when you wrote up that bit on the Mandarin—leaking intel you nicked from SHIELD, you cheeky monkey! Between that, and being compromised with the hack, my masters thought you might be amenable to helping us. Alexander Pierce liked your spunk. He’s a dead eejit, but he got some things right. All I’d’ve had to do is show you what we’re about, let you see the truth, and, well, a spot of blackmail over that hack wouldn’t’ve gone amiss. But you had to muck it up, you nosy parker.” He held a small silvery device in front of my face. “Brilliant little gadget, here. Delivers a high-pitched sonic frequency that overloads the nervous system and causes the entire body to lock up. Not permanent, so don’t panic.” He laid it on the coffee table beside the tiny blue-lit nubs, which looked like earplugs, with a sigh. “I do hate this, m’dear. Flipping you to our cause was my plan—Project Pancake, get it? Now that you’ve twigged to it, it’ll likely take some more—intense—persuasion, to break you to the purpose. The high muckamucks want what they want though, and what they want, among other things, is Tony Stark dead. Like father, like son, as it were. And who better to do for Tony Stark than someone he trusts, like you?”

I felt like I was locked in a closet, screaming and throwing myself at the walls of my own traitorous body that lay passive and helpless, drenched in sweat, drooling and barely able to blink. Simon glanced down and lifted one foot as if to crush my phone that I knew lay on the floor. Then an unpleasant small grin twisted his mouth. “Ah. What about a bit of extra _kompromat,_ here?” He picked the StarkPhone up and dialed. “Pancake being taken in hand. Request our pickup?...Confirmed. Will be ready.” After another pause, he spoke the words that turned my writhing insides to ice. “Hail HYDRA.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I chose the Zodiac code partly as a shout out to our science bros who shared the screen first (I think) in the movie of the same name. :)
> 
> Also, the code looks exactly like what I envisioned when writing this sequence. Here's a sample so you know. https://www.zodiacciphers.com/complete-408-cipher.html


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy breaks up with Simon, the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everybody for your kind words and support. I'm back in the saddle, as that seems to be my best route to normalcy, or some approximation thereof, since I've really never ever been normal. lol. {{hugs}} to you all.

“Right, then,” Simon said after hanging up on his HYDRA pals. “When you come back from your unexpected leave of absence, if Stark and his minions poke about in your phone history, they’ll find a nice call to a mysterious number that turns out to be their sworn foes. Good motivation for you to do the deed you’re made to do and get out, wot?” Simon dropped my phone on the table too. “Our ride’ll take a bit to arrive, so I’ll have to restrain you. Dunno why you and I never gave that sort of thing a whirl; as adventurous as you are, I expect you might take a liking to it.” With another pat to my leg, making my skin crawl, he got up and walked out of my line of sight. “Don’t hare off. Ha! Just havin’ you on, old girl. Be right back with the implements.”

How was this—this assassin—the guy I had once thought I might love; this man who cheerfully talked about turning me over to what sounded like torture and brainwashing, who seemed pleased as punch at the idea of forcing me to kill one of my best friends? One thing was damn sure, I would kill myself or make HYDRA kill me first. I looked down at the coffee table, and what I saw gave me a hint of hope. 

The brain icon on the small screen was lit up in yellow-orange. JARVIS was listening. He had heard everything, and he knew where I was. My fear spiked though, as I realized what would probably happen. JARVIS was set to alert Pepper and Tony. Best-case scenario would be one or more Avengers coming looking for me. Worst case was, Tony, being Tony, suiting up and flying up here—and right into Simon’s line of fire, and what in the hell was I going to do about it?

_Lord help me, I can’t panic. Got to keep my wits about me_. What to do? The only thing I could think of was to go along. If I didn’t fight Simon, if I concocted some bullshit and made him think I was willing to throw in with HYDRA, we’d bug out as soon as his contact arrived. God willing, if I acted sufficiently eager, I could get him out of here before any plum target for the tentacled assholes arrived. Either way, if it would protect my friends, as infuriating as it was, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Footsteps sounded behind me again, and a moment later Simon reappeared. My eyes went to his hands, which held a roll of duct tape. _Oh shit, he really means this_. With my eyes the only thing I could move, he noticed every twitch, and when I immediately looked up from his hands to meet his gaze, his little grin grew wider. “Blimey,” he breathed. “Not a fearful look, that. Looks more like you’re ready to play with us.”

I couldn’t nod, but I tried closing my eyes and opening them again after a moment. “Code,” Simon chuckled. “You always fancied those as much as I did, didn’t you? One blink for yes, two for no?” I repeated the motion. “Brilliant.” He glanced down at the clock display on my phone. “Taser has three or four more minutes, so I’m still going to have to bind you—but I don’t want them to hurt you, Christine. When they show you what we’re at, you’ll see we’re in the right. If you’re willing to hear them out, I’ll do all I can to keep you safe. Are you willing?” I communicated my lie. 

This time, my eyes opened in time to catch a glimpse of something shiny flitting past the window, something red and gold. _Shit, shit, it’s taking too long, where the hell is that pickup? Go away Tony! _Simon’s back was to the window, and thankfully, his focus had shifted; instead of watching my face, he was scooting the low coffee table to one side and kneeling on the floor at my feet, pulling out a length of tape and reaching for my ankles. “You’ll see, love. You’ll be all mine, just as you should’ve been all along—"__

____

____

As usual, Tony didn’t do what he was told. The next moment, the glass pane blew into the room in a spray like razor-sharp water, followed by the Iron Man suit. Simon froze for a split second, like he couldn’t decide which way to jump, and that was his undoing; one repulsor blast hit him with pinpoint accuracy and flung him across the room like an understuffed doll. He tried to roll and come up, but he flopped around awkwardly before he rose, just within my line of sight. When he did, though, it was with a pistol in his hand. Surely he wasn’t dumb enough to think it would even make a dent in gold-titanium alloy. Then I realized the muzzle wasn’t pointing at Tony.

It was pointed at me.

Well, it was pointed at me for a hot second or so, before another shot from Tony sent it flying across the room. I heard it hit the wall (couldn’t look around at it, but it sounded like it left a mark) and hoped the impact wouldn’t make it go off. Tony landed in front of him and reached down, his suit clicking and popping, until his motion halted. There was a crunch, and Simon’s voice gasped, “Hail HYDRA—” before it cut off abruptly. _Tony_ , I thought in silent shock. _Tony, you did not just—_

A whirring told me the suit was opening. Out of the corner of my eye I could just see Tony step out and go down beside Simon, sniffing. “Damn, cyanide again. Fuckin’ suicidal bitches.” He stood and smacked the suit on one shoulder. “Sentry mode, buddy,” he said and darted over to kneel on the floor where Simon had been. “Chrissy? Hey, cornbread, talk to…me…” His voice faltered and he leaned in close. I blinked frantically. _Lord, don’t let me think I’m dead, he can see me breathing, right? _It wasn't easy, but air was still going in and out. I could feel my chest expanding. Shit, the pickup was coming and he was out of the suit, and I couldn't warn him!__

____

____

His mouth dropped open, the expression of annoyance and relief he had worn morphing into disbelief and horror. “Damn. No. No.” His hand rose to touch my face; good Lord, what must I look like, to put that appalled look on a man who handled alien invasions with a quip? He turned his head from side to side as though searching the space around us, and when he looked over at the moved table, he took a sharp breath and reached over to pick up the little device Simon had used to paralyze me. For a frightening moment, I thought Tony might just pass out; his free hand locked onto my knee, his eyes closed and I would have sworn the hand holding the device shook.

A faint, tinny voice came to my ears, like a distant radio, before Tony threw the device on the couch and put that hand up to his ear. “I hear ya, Hawkeye. I’m in. He was HYDRA…Yeah, gone TWA. Hustle, Legolas, get the bird up here…no, no, she’s okay, just—hurry, please.” He stood, dropped onto the sofa beside me and took my face in both hands. “Chrissy. I know you can hear me, and see me and feel. Blink for me, okay, just—just let me know you’re all right, sweetie?” 

I gave a fervent blink, and he looked marginally calmer. What had him so distressed, though, I didn’t know until his next words. “It’s a sonic taser. Effects last about fifteen minutes. I know because I—I made it, I invented it, but the military wouldn’t buy it. This,” he tilted his head toward where the gadget had landed, “is one of the protos, complete with the special earplugs for the user. I’d know the damn thing anywhere, so how the fuck did fuckin’ HYDRA—” He shook his head. “Never mind, just, I know what it does, Stane, um, used it on me. So, I’m staying right here, where you can see me. I’m not gonna let go of you, okay? I’m not gonna leave you alone.” My pounding heart steadied, and he put his arms around me, a little awkward but resolute in his touch. “Barton’s on the way with the quinjet. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…Are you in pain? You breathing okay?” I assured him with a blink, but inside I was freaking out again. The need for speed was even greater now, with a HYDRA taxi on its way. 

Just before Tony had crashed in, Simon had said three or four minutes, so surely, surely, the cold pain would loosen its grip any second now. I kept fighting to move, and finally one shoulder twitched. The next moment, the rigidity in my neck began to slacken and I moved my head a little. “Whoa! Hey, welcome back. Your color’s better, distended veins going down, good, good. Talk to me?”

My mouth was dry from hanging open, but after a few tries I got it moving. “We’ve gotta get out of here,” I croaked. “Simon was here to kill you, Tony, or—or make me do it, and his pickup’ll be here in a minute—" A couple of shrugs unfroze my arms, and I put my hands over his while I sucked deep breaths. “Help me up?”

To his credit, he didn’t try to coddle me (but then, if he’d been on the receiving end of that weapon, he knew how it felt, and that didn’t bear thinking about for the moment). He stood, pulled me up and held my hands firm while I wobbled briefly. A hum sounded above us. “Our ride’s landing,” Tony explained while I collected my phone and the encrypted pad—and the taser and earplugs, when he looked away and toward the broken window at a sound from outside. It wasn’t Clint, though. Instead, Steve, in full gear, swung in from a rope evidently lowered from the roof. “Hey, Cap,” Tony said with a note of surprise. “Thought you were downtown with the mayor kissing hands and shaking babies.”

“I was. Thought rescuing our wordsmith was more important. Besides, Bruce nearly went full-on code green when Clint told him. Nat stayed behind to keep him calm.” Steve crunched through the glass shards and gave me a hug. “You okay, Chris?”

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks to Tony. We have to bug out though. HYDRA’s on their way.” I held up the notebook. “This has notes on some of their shenanigans, and I think I saw others in the bedroom. Simon’s laptop is there too. Be right back.” My legs got with the program, only a little unsteady as I hurried to find the computer. I shoved it in its bag, then started to hunt for the note pads. Every second that passed made my neck prickle with fear and my hands sweat. Finally, I found them tucked into a drawer. I pulled only a couple out before the unexpected appearance of small flames that began to lick at the cardboard covers. With a yelp, I grabbed Simon’s discarded jeans from the floor and beat it out.

“What’s wrong?” Steve appeared in the doorway.

“A fire. Maybe a little incendiary device, timed to eliminate evidence after he left with me?”

“Could be.” Steve agreed. I stuffed everything in the laptop bag and he escorted me back into the living area, where Tony had donned his suit. “Take her and get outta here, Tony. Don’t give HYDRA a free shot at you. I’m staying, I’m…in the mood for some exercise.” He tossed his shield from one hand to the other with a mirthless grin I’d never seen on Captain America. 

For a wonder, Tony didn’t argue at all. “C’mon,” he told me, “let’s leave grandpa to his calisthenics.”

I started toward the door, but Tony scoffed and led me to the window. “Um, I’m not a spider, hot rod, and I’m not going to be climbing that wall out there—” My objection was cut off when the quinjet appeared and hovered a few feet away. “Hang on!” Tony’s metal-clad arms locked around me and we lifted off, flying the short distance to the open side hatch.

From the pilot’s seat, Clint waved to me. “I should’ve warned you not to let us rub off on you too much!”

“Too late for all that. Sorry y’all had to come bail my ass out this time. But I got a buttload of HYDRA documentation, so it wasn’t all for naught.” I ran forward to hug him quickly, then back aft to sit down and strap in, grinning. Before long, I knew what I had just gone through would hit me like a Mack truck, but at this moment, my uppermost thought was that I had made it out alive (and with a bag full of booty) and I was almost light-headed with relief. 

Tony was seated stiffly, still in his suit. I snuggled right up to him and put my head on his armored shoulder. Amazing how safe that big thing made me feel. My free hand felt the outline of the sonic taser in my pocket, and it sobered me a bit. A theory began to form in my mind, a suspicion of how HYDRA had gotten their filthy mitts on Stark technology that even the US government considered too dangerous, and it made me furious to think about.

My impromptu headrest didn’t move until the tower came into sight; then Tony shifted and stood. “This is my stop. Got to get the suit checked and put away.” Before I could respond, he popped the side hatch open and was gone in a shiny, graceful sweep. I watched him fly away, mildly dumbfounded, then shook it off before we landed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony tells Clint that Simon is TWA--means traveling with the angels, aka dead.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy's friends welcome her back safely, and she works to get past her traumatic experience. She and Tony start to peruse Simon's files, and make unsettling discoveries that confirm her darkest suspicions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks and hugs to all y'all who expressed your support for me after the passing of my mom! I really appreciate it.
> 
> As always, comments and feedback are welcomed, especially in these and upcoming chapters, when some information that will shock our dear characters comes to light...

We landed on the rooftop moments later, and I disembarked to find myself engulfed in Avengers. Bruce enveloped me in a surprising and slightly greenish hug. “The Other Guy was worried sick,” he confessed. 

Clint slapped me on the back and bragged on my cool head (I didn’t have the heart to tell him most of that was accidental or shock or some of both). Natasha put a reassuring hand on Bruce’s shoulder and one on mine. “Where’s Tony?” she asked. “And Steve?”

“Tony bailed before we landed,” I told them. “He’s probably down in the dungeon going over his suit. And Steve, uh, decided to stay and greet the HYDRA cab driver.”

Every head nodded in understanding. ”Well, come fill us in,” Clint said. “All we know is, your ex turned out to be a little more than just garden variety possessive.”

“You should’ve let me knife him that night,” Nat reproved me as the group headed for the team floor. I gave them a very quick and dirty summary, including that Simon was apparently searching for a rogue HYDRA agent, and pointed out to Nat that if I had let her knife Simon, we wouldn’t have the treasure trove of intel I’d recovered. She agreed, though not happily. “They’ll change anything they know he had,” she said, “so if there are base locations in the laptop files, they’ll move those. But the hand-written notes in his own code might have been a personal insurance policy. Good to cover your back when you work with people like that.”

Steve came in about then, looking a little tired and well worked-out, but declined to comment on his activities other than to note news crews were arriving as he left Simon’s apartment. He didn’t mention ambulances, which was fine with me for the most part, until I really spared some brain cells to consider the man I had shared wonderful, fun, silly and sexy times with was dead by his own hand, after trying to kidnap me to sell to his masters in _the_ international terror organization. I could feel my calm crumbling, and suppressed a shudder. The team was proud of me for being tough, so tough I was going to be.

Bruce headed off to call out for pizza, Nat to call Pepper (she had promised to let her know when I got back) and Clint and Steve hit their floors to clean up before eating. Initially I intended to do the same, but Tony hadn’t appeared since our return, so, laptop bag still bumping at my hip, I decided to drop into the workshop to check on him first. When I got there, though, I was stymied. “I’m sorry, Miss Everhart, but Sir has asked that no one be admitted,” JARVIS told me.

“Why?”

“He declined to provide a verbal justification. However, my monitoring of his vital signs and autonomic reactions indicates he is experiencing some emotional disturbance. In addition, he is currently perusing old Stark Industries files regarding the sonic taser; and that, in conjunction with the information I obtained when you opened your app, and with Sir’s psychological profile, leads me to postulate that he is distressed about a weapon he created having been turned on you, and possibly about your consequent reactions to him going forward.”

“Shit. I bet you’re right, JARVIS. That’s like him.” I sank to the floor and rested my back against the dark-tinted glass door. “He ought to know better by now than to try to tell me how to feel. Please tell him exactly where I’m sitting, dear, and that my ass will be planted like a tree right here until he deigns to open this damn door.”

I didn’t have to sit for long until the door behind me swooshed open. “Go ahead,” Tony said from above, “bitch at me and get it over with.”

“Not bitching about anything, except pizza getting cold.” I tipped my head back to look up at him, stripped down to a worn Metallica t-shirt and his undersuit pants, then got to my feet. “I asked Bruce to order one of those ham and pineapple jobs that only you and I will eat, so come help me out.”

He shook his head and turned away. If he thought I was going to stand there and let him close the door in my face, he was wrong. I trooped right into the workshop behind him, shrugged the laptop bag off (it was starting to get heavy) and deposited it on a nearby work surface. “Fine, I’ll bring you some. Is the suit okay? Are _you_ okay?” I spied a screen showing SI order receipts and walked over to it. “You’re already on this, I see,” I went on, not giving away what JARVIS had shared with me. “Any leads yet on how those HYDRA bastards got your tech? I have a theory—”

“Then follow it,” he snapped, not looking at me. “You don’t have to be here for that, you’re good enough to do it on your own, and I imagine not being around me will suit you—”

I stared in frank astonishment. “Excuse me? What crawled up your ass and died?”

“What—” He spun on me, his face twisted in anger. One hand thrust into my pocket before I could protest, and pulled out the taser. “This!” he yelled and threw it aside, to a startled peep from DUM-E who was sitting in that general area. “I’m like fuckin’ Michael Corleone. Every time I think I’m free of this shit, something else pops up and sucks me back. People getting hurt by things I made. And this, this is my worst nightmare, people I care about getting hurt by things I made. You blame me—”

“No!”

“Well, you should!” Tony raked his hands through his hair.

“Is that what this is about?” In a way, it was good I had something to yell about; it would hold off my inevitable crash a little longer. “Dammit, Tony! I hoped Rina would help you out with this.” He shook his head in negation and started to turn to another holoscreen, but I grabbed the front of his shirt. “I’m not blaming you, _you’re_ blaming you!” Unhappily, sometimes the body can’t tell one emotional outburst from another, and now that I had let go of calm, I felt my knees start to shake. “What if he’d knocked me over the head and duct taped me up? Would that’ve been better? Sure, I was scared, scared shitless, but Tony, if you ha-hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t known what was going on—my God, as if being targeted for brainwashing to make me hurt you wasn’t bad enough, I was afraid I’d be trapped conscious in a body that wouldn’t work, or somebody’d find me and think I was dead because I couldn’t m-m-move, or…” My voice broke and my legs went at about the same moment. The irate grip on his shirt somehow turned into me holding on to him for dear life before I fell in the floor. As though in slow motion, I felt my body lean forward, and wound up wrapped in his arms. “Not blaming you,” I repeated. “I’m thanking you. I’m thanking God for you.”

Tony’s laugh was breathless. “Fairly certain nobody’s ever claimed me as an answer to prayer.”

“First time for everything,” I retorted and sniffed, determined not to cry; well, no more than the few tears that had slipped out much against my will. “Here,” I added and tried to push away and stand on my own feet. “I know grand parades of feelings make you uncomfortable, so I will get out—”

“Think again, cornbread.” Not letting go of me, he started to back up toward the ratty old couch against one wall. “I can’t let you leave all wound up like this. You, uh, you might choke on a chunk of pineapple, and then I really would blame myself. Humor me.”

“Fine,” I pretended to concede, as Tony sat down and pulled me to his side. 

With a tired and relieved sigh, I settled against his shoulder as I had on the jet, but this time with his arm around me and his hand patting my back. “Better?” he asked after a bit.

“Yeah. Please don’t run away if you think I’m upset with you though. It just makes me feel like _you’re_ upset with _me_ , and then I don’t know why. Use your words, honey.”

He sighed. “I’m working on it,” he offered.

“Good enough.” After a few more minutes I felt less dizzy and overwrought. “Thing about this is, somebody I cared about wanted to stab me in the back. How did I not see it?” 

“You weren’t looking for it.” Tony’s voice was gentle but definite. “Trust me, I know.”

“Oh gosh, yeah. You said Stane—he used that thing on you?” I gulped. “Dammit. I’m sorry. This has to be stirring up ghosts for you.”

His other shoulder shrugged, one corner of his mouth twitching up. “For that to be a problem, I’d have to believe in ghosts.”

It sure looked to me like there were some specters drifting through the big dark eyes that met mine, but I wasn’t about to call Tony on it right now. I just hugged his neck, then pulled him up to go get pizza.

Pepper came boiling out of the elevator about the time we got to it. ”Is he dead?” she burst out.

Tony actually had the nerve to look a bit taken aback. As if he didn’t know her. “Yes.” I replied flatly.

“Dammit,” she complained. “I wanted to do that myself, unless you already had.” 

“Take a number,” I said with a smile that felt semi-real at last. “It seems several other folks wanted that gig.”

After more hugs, I finally reached the food. Sitting back down in the common area with a paper plate in my lap and my friends around me felt surreal. I couldn’t help thinking how practically minutes before, I had been slated for what had sounded like a one-way trip to hell. I could, however, stop myself from ruminating about what that might have entailed. 

Over the next days, that’s exactly what I worked to do, and though impeded on occasion by reminders that popped up (or grabbed me by the collar), I did pretty well. I only had trouble sleeping a couple of times, and generally, I was able to remedy that by reminding myself I wasn’t in a house alone, or even in an apartment building shared with strangers. I was in the most secure damn structure in New York City, maybe the U.S.; the place Captain America felt safest; surrounded by people willing to kick many asses to aid me, and fully capable of doing so.

When a nightmare woke me, I often found company on the common floor. It wasn’t surprising that superheroes would have sleep issues. Sipping tea and swapping stories with Bruce and Nat, playing a video game with Clint, or working on my paperwork while Steve sat and drew, always reassured me enough to go back to bed after a little while.

For a couple of weeks, Tony and Pepper appointed themselves my guardians. Pep directed Happy to accompany me when I had to leave the tower for work or errands. Normally, that would have smothered me, driven me crazy, but when I thought too long about what had almost happened, remembered the helplessness and impotent rage and terror, I had no arguments to offer. There were times I could have hidden in my bed and not come out for a day or so, and having Happy beside me warded off the fear. Besides, he was lovely company.

In between my official job, I set about deciphering Simon’s notebooks. Tony hacked the laptop and fed the files he found there (mostly ‘official’ HYDRA stuff, if such a thing existed) to JARVIS to sort through. He was more than willing to tackle the notebooks, but even if I had taught him the Zodiac code, Simon’s handwriting was abysmal. When Tony looked at it, he turned it this way and that and sighed like a puppy trying to explain to its human the need to go chase squirrels. Even after years, though, I was still able to read it. 

What I found was chilling in the extreme. Simon had been working with HYDRA for years. It looked like his giving me the military radio hack had been a deliberate attempt to start compromising me and make me vulnerable to his masters’ coercion, even before I had first met Tony Stark. It seemed to have never occurred to them that I might actually have trusted a friend enough to tell her about the hack, and thus not be so susceptible to their blackmail.

There wasn’t much information on the agent Simon had been tracking, other than they seemed to have turned on HYDRA, even attacking its bases in the U.S. _Go you, whoever you are_ , I thought to the mystery rebel. More detail was carefully logged relating to Simon’s other mission. With their Project Insight hit list thwarted, one of their uppermost leaders eliminated and others taken into custody, the remainder were infuriated, and they had an idea who was responsible for their woes. Even though he had been supremely discreet about it, they knew only Tony had the mad skills to disable the helicarriers and selectively leak the information about their infiltration of SHIELD. 

The laptop held even more. Tony reported with an almost gruesome pride that HYDRA had had it in for him from way back, at least since he came out as Iron Man. That made their efforts to turn Steve against Tony, before the two had ever met, even more understandable; they certainly would fear their old enemy Captain America joining forces with one of their current and most dangerous foes.

In hopes of crippling the Avengers and winning themselves breathing room to regroup, they had sent Simon to rekindle our relationship, and use it to either worm himself into the team’s confidences close enough to kill Tony, or coax me to turn. From what he had said, when he surprised me nosing through his notes, he had decided to capture and take me in. Probably he had hoped to be rewarded for catching a close Stark associate and surrendering me to be broken by them. Knowing him, I would have been the prize he hoped for. 

It sickened me to learn his overtures had been a fraud. The years he had stayed in contact; the journalistic leads he had shared; the little lovers’ touches he had seemingly never let go of, that I had put down to simple pining: all of it had been a lie. After it revolted me, it maddened me. I ended up sharing it with Tony; Lord knew, he knew how it felt to be betrayed by someone he had trusted and thought cared about him. 

That angst went to a whole other level, the morning I went looking for Tony to deliver a request from a local children’s hospital for an autographed photo for their annual auction. JARVIS directed me to the party deck, and I found him slumped on the wicker couch before the firepit, where a small blaze danced among fluffy pale ashes on a breeze rising from the city streets below. A file folder lay in his lap. “Hey hot rod, you okay?” 

He didn’t turn or reply, and I continued toward his back. “it was Obie,” he finally said, his tone flat.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The depths of Stane's perfidy are revealed, and Chrissy feels impelled to act. Later, as she finishes decoding Simon's notes, she unearths a truth so horrible, she doesn't know how to tell Tony, or even if she should.

“The taser? I thought so.” I sat beside him. “It’s amusing, in a nasty sort of way. Stane threatened me, you said, so it’s like he finally got a shot at me, years after his death.”

“He dealt to HYDRA for decades, since before my parents died.” Tony stared at the flames. “Remember what I said about not believing in ghosts? Maybe it doesn’t matter whether you believe in them or not.”

“I think what matters is how much control over you that you let them have.” I put my hand over his where it rested on his knee.

“He’s gonna keep haunting me, Chrissy. Who knows how the fuck much Stark weaponry was sold under the table and where? Obie was obsessive about keeping records at SI, he wanted every damn penny accounted for, so I thought when we found his receipts for his side hustles, we had it covered. But HYDRA? That wasn’t on any book anywhere, so what else wasn’t? There are dozens of little wars going on at any given time, all over the planet. How many of those dime-store Mussolinis did Obie peddle _my_ gear to, to line his pockets?”

I had no answer for him; nobody did. All I could do was be there. “You still call him Obie,” I said after a minute. “Of course you do. He meant something to you, just like Simon meant something to me. Even knowing he didn’t care about you for anything but—”

“The golden goose. That’s what he called me, the night he tried to kill me—which was only one time, and not the last. And, as it turns out, it was damn sure not the first.” Tony slapped the folder lying on his lap. “It’s all here. I printed it from McGann’s laptop files; sometimes things seem more real on paper, you know? HYDRA wanted their little spy to be fully informed, I guess. That, or they thought your boy could use this to prove to you how weak I was, to convince you that you were better off working with them and the world was better off rid of me.”

I sneered. “Damn, don’t people who can’t find their asses with both hands and a flashlight just amaze the shit out of you?” Tony actually looked over at me, at that. “I mean, I don’t make close friends easily, and when I do, I don’t turn my back on them. So I’m glad you said that, because it reminds me that if Simon even entertained that thought, he never knew me at all. That’s an odd comfort. Makes me feel a little less like I got played.” I gazed thoughtfully at the dancing flames, squeezed Tony’s hand, then let go and put my hand out. “Can I see?”

He tossed the file into my lap, and just as I opened it, he said softly, “I’m not sure Pep even knows I tried to kill myself. It was the year after my parents died, so it was way before her time, and I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever told her. Obie came to the hospital, carefully made the reports go away, acted so sympathetic but told me it was way past time that I manned up. And then…then he told HYDRA. Was damn proud of himself, in fact. Said he hoped—” He took a ragged breath. “He hoped if he manipulated me the right way, I’d try again, and this time I’d get it right.”

I threw the folder down on the concrete at my feet, turned and put my arms around him and just held on. For once, I had not a single word at my disposal, until I had sat there for a while savoring Tony’s warmth and strength and life. “You won’t hear me say this to you often, my friend, but that’s one venture I am very, very happy you failed miserably at,” I finally whispered. He laughed unsteadily, and it took everything in me not to kiss his forehead. There were boundaries that didn’t need to be crossed. 

“You abused my files,” he pointed out after another minute; playing his misdirection cards again, giving me a subtle code for ‘okay, I’ve had enough of this feelings thing for now’. 

“Your files are usually not on paper,” I returned and picked the folder up.

“I know, I know. Me, the futurist, kickin’ it old school.”

The folder contained copies of official HYDRA action reports, and specifics on sales Stane had made to them, as far back as the eighties and as recently as just before Tony’s abduction, with emphasis on a number of small nations in Eastern Europe and Asia. Tony said he was sorting them by priority; his plans to clean them up would be worked around the Avengers’ projected missions to hit the HYDRA bases listed in Simon’s notes, sometimes serving both purposes at once. He would be thorough, I knew, in making explanations and amends. As I had told Steve months before, Tony did nothing by halves.

It left me sick at heart, though, that he had to do this, that the man he had innocently put his confidence in as a wounded kid had viewed him as nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded. While I paged through the file, Tony explained quietly that Stane had deliberately let Tony’s wild behavior slide, to keep him out of the way and decrease any risk of the illicit sales being found out. Initially, letting Tony drink himself to death, or whatever (Tony didn’t offer details and I wasn’t about to ask) had been Stane’s plan, but when HYDRA had offered assistance, he had reconsidered, telling them he saw no point in wasting a brilliant mind that he could easily control by playing on Tony’s emotions.

“He was trying to play them too, though,” Tony said with a tone of certainty. “If he’d let them bump me off, he’d have gotten what he wanted, but then they’d have had leverage over him.”

“Holy shit,” I gulped. “Stark Industries and all its weapons and tech, essentially in HYDRA’s hands. Excuse me, I need to go puke just at the thought.”

A puff of wind tugged the page I was holding and gesturing with out of my fingers and into the fire pit. I tried to grab it back, but Tony blocked my hand. “I already charred some of them,” he said. “Things I don’t want to think about anymore.” We both sat and watched it catch fire, curl up and blacken. “Bizarrely satisfying to watch,” he mused. “Might torch that whole file, later on. With marshmallows on hand,” he added as he got to his feet.

“I’m sorry if I intruded,” I said. "Want me to leave you alone?"

He shook his head. “I’m still no expert at feelings, but I’m getting better at recognizing them, and I…yeah, I was sliding down a hole, just now, until you showed up. I needed somebody here, to help me put the brakes on.”

“And I was as good as any?” I smiled and stood, laying the folder on the seat.

“One of the best,” he said as he picked the file up and tossed an arm around my shoulders.

The warmth of thankfulness for my being led to the right place at the right time lasted until we parted ways, and then cold rage crept into its place. The man who had hurt my friend so deeply was beyond my reach, but I felt a gnawing need to do something to express my hatred. By the time I got to my office, I had an idea. It was fortunate that the most pressing thing currently on my plate for the Avengers was posting some photos Bruce had snapped during a disastrous game of Twister last week, on their facebook and twitter. I made a call to Leticia to beg off an SI meeting on an international clean water initiative I was helping with, promising to get the work done and into her hands ASAP; then I pulled out my overnight bag (part of the first matched set of luggage I’d ever owned, a birthday gift from Tony and Pepper).

After I tossed in a carefully chosen change of clothes and some pajamas, and made a couple more calls, I tracked Pepper down, in the hallway outside her office on her way to a meeting. “Won’t keep you, but I wanted to let you know I need a little time off. I already cleared it with Leticia, but I thought you should be aware too. It’s just gonna be a quick run to the West Coast. Depending on airline schedules, I might have to stay overnight, but hopefully I can get it done and be back tomorrow.”

“Of course, Chrissy, whatever you need. What’s going on?”

Really, I knew I should just say it was personal and leave it at that. Sometimes, though…well, my mouth does get away from me. “I need to go piss on Obadiah Stane’s grave,” I told her. “Tony can explain.”

He did, I supposed. About an hour later, I had kicked the shit out of a punching bag in the gym (and scared Clint just a bit, I think), cleaned up and was in my kitchen making a patty melt for lunch when Pepper appeared at my door. “Have you booked a flight yet?” she asked when I opened it. Baffled, I shook my head. “Good. SI jet is full of fuel. What time do you want to leave?”

“Um, now?”

She nodded once. "Now is good."

A few hours later, we were walking across the moist lawn of a southern California cemetery in late afternoon sun. The marker we stopped before was a symbolic one, Obadiah Stane having supposedly died in the crash of a small plane while on vacation. “I’m not sure what SHIELD did with his body,” Pepper said. “For all I know, he may not even be buried here.”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” I replied. “It’s the principle of the thing.” I scanned our surroundings. Back at the road, Happy stood at the limo he had driven us from SI’s landing strip in, studiously not looking in our direction. The trip had been conducted strictly on the down-low, and no paparazzi were in sight. I planted my feet on the turf straddling the grave, flicked my shortish full skirt to one side (my underwear was in my pocket) and cut loose. When the flow stopped, I spat on the ground just for good measure. Pepper was almost shaking trying to hold back laughter as I stepped aside to stand watch while she took her turn. She had worn red, appropriately enough.

All was going well until I heard a buzz. “Hold up!” I hissed and looked around. “That better not be a damn tabloid’s drone, or I’ll find a rock to throw—” The buzz was joined by a more familiar metallic grumble the next instant, and I relaxed at the sight of an Iron Man suit hovering overhead.

“Pervert,” Pepper growled when it landed and Tony’s face appeared.

“Well, Potts, if you had only told me you were into golden showers I’d—”

“Ew,” I said pointedly and stalked off toward the limo. “I don’t think I wanna be around while y’all have this conversation.”

“This half of ‘y’all’ does not want to have this conversation at all.” Pepper kissed Tony and followed me. 

Metal whined as Tony held up one gauntlet and folded all the fingers except the middle one down. “Meet you girls at the airfield?”

Pepper shook her head, never breaking stride. “We’re staying overnight. Malibu Beach Inn,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m dropping in at the labs in the morning before we head back.”

“Order the Bucatini Pomodoro for me!” he yelled at her retreating back. “And a bottle of Sangiovese. And maybe the chocolate chip cookie in the teeny cast-iron skillet with ice cream…”

“He’s overdoing it,” I said as I got in the back and Pepper joined me.

“I know.” As we pulled off, Tony turned away, staring down at the manicured grass and flat metal plate. In the back of my mind I thought, _Wish you could see this from hell, Stane, you venal bastard. Your plans fell to dust, and there stands the boy you tried and failed to destroy, a man and a hero, stronger than you ever imagined being._ I prayed Simon’s notes and HYDRA files had yielded the last of their nasty little secrets; I didn’t want to see Tony hurt any more by them.

That was one prayer that went unanswered. After I got back to New York and caught up the work that had magically appeared in my brief absence, I found time to work on deciphering the last of the coded note pads. And it was in one of those that I found the smoking gun about the deaths of Tony’s parents: a mission report using that mysterious term ‘asset’ again. The documentation didn’t specify who did the deed, but the basic outline of events was agonizingly clear. Howard Stark had been transporting specimens of his experimental attempts to replicate the serum that had made Steve Captain America, five doses to be exact, in the trunk of his car. The HYDRA report stated their agent had caused the Starks’ car to crash, found they had survived the impact, killed them both, and taken the serum along with a surveillance video, to cover up the true events.

When I pieced the story together, I threw the page I was working on aside, got a blank one, and started over from scratch, because I could not believe what I was reading. Surely I had messed up the code, somewhere, somehow. Surely I had! _Lord God, don’t put me in this position_. All I had was the word of a dead man affiliated with a band of high-tech Nazi thugs; was that enough evidence to justify causing Tony such pain? How could I do that to him? _Could_ I do that to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the Malibu Beach Inn does exist, and everything Tony asked Pep to order for him is on their restaurant’s menu. :)
> 
> There are a few bits of this saga that have existed in my head almost from the beginning, and Chrissy telling Pepper "I need to go piss on Obadiah Stane's grave" is one of them. That concept arose from a convo with my friend SmutLover about this chapter in her amazing series: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9253160/chapters/34549101
> 
> I maintained that while Nat is awesome, she was incorrect about a couple of things in that chapter, most especially that Pepper would have stopped Sam and Steve. More likely, I argued, she would have joined them. That's when I realized Chrissy would have a similar reaction down the road to learning just how deeply Stane had betrayed Tony's trust, and so would Pep. They went at it, of course, in a suitably feminine manner: dressed fashionably and having a nice dinner afterwards. hehe
> 
> SmutLover is awesome btw, and I highly recommend everything she has ever written.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy takes her troubling discovery to Tony, only to learn he's three steps ahead (isn't he always?). But when Steve asks Tony's help with a newly unearthed file on Bucky, what Tony finds may shatter him.

After repeating the decrypting procedure with the same result, I metaphorically kicked myself in the ass. Could I tell him what I had found? Hell, what choice did I have? He had the skills and the access to find any evidence that confirmed or refuted the account. More importantly even than that, he had a suspicion already, based on the info Steve had brought to him. _Tony has the right to know_.

I stuffed the pages of translation into the notebook and wrapped a rubber band around it to keep things from falling out. “JARVIS, where is Tony?”

“Sir is currently perusing the penthouse kitchen in search of pickles. Should I inform him you—”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll catch him later.” Mention of a kitchen made me think a cup of tea and a few minutes to sit and gather myself before approaching Tony would help as much as anything. Some of the awesome rooibos tea a friend of Bruce’s had sent him from Africa would do the trick; he had left it in the team kitchen for general use, so I headed that way with note pad under my arm and mug in hand.

The tea was exactly where I remembered. I snagged a tea bag, turned to flee to the safety of my office, and ran face-first into Tony. “Hey, cornbread! You seen any pickles in here? We’re out upstairs, and I’m craving. Told Potts she’s knocked me up. She says she won’t believe it until I ask for ice cream with ‘em, so I may do it just for spite—”

“No,” I said curtly and ducked to go around him. 

“Um, okay? Don’t go far, Nat’s cooking tonight. Beef borscht and homemade rye bread from the bakery!”

“K. Thanks.” I made for the elevator at full speed, but the elevator wasn’t so accommodating as to arrive right away. After a few seconds of nervous jogging in place, I turned to hit the stairs. 

A hand fell on my shoulder and turned me around. “You okay?” Tony asked.

“Fine.” I tried not to snap; none of this was his fault, after all. I also kept my gaze fixed on the floor, because I knew my limitations, and there was no way in this world I could look Tony Stark in the eye and lie to him.

He knew that too, apparently, because the next thing I knew his hand was taking hold of my chin and gently but inescapably bringing my face up. “You sure? Did I--”

I tried to keep it together, Lord knows I did, but his penetrating gaze and concerned tone were more than I could take. “I’m sorry,” I choked and tried to push away, to get away for even a second and regain my self-control; but all I succeeded in doing was dropping the pad of paper under my arm. Tony glanced down at it, and the moment he put the pieces together came with an almost audible click. 

“C’mon,” he said softly as he scooped the book up and guided me down the hallway toward the library. It had started life as Tony’s parents’ collection from their old home on the Upper East Side, and been added to by the Avengers since Tony lined the huge room on the far end of the common floor with bookshelves. Steve’s and my used-bookstore raids had contributed considerably to the stock. Right now, that was farthest from my mind, as Tony set me down firmly in a chair. “What’s up, Chrissy? Is it McGann?” He held up the notebook, then dropped it on a nearby table with a flop that echoed through the quiet space. “Stop this. It isn’t your job, tracking leads, chasing villains. If it’s just reminding you of what he—he tried to do to you, if it’s gonna mess you up this way—”

“It’s not that.” I shook my head and wrestled my thoughts back into place. “I promise it isn’t about me, Tony, it’s—Shit. Okay, might as well spit it out. I finished decrypting the books, and you were right. About your parents. HYDRA killed them.”

He blinked. “Yeah,” he said, but not in a questioning tone; it sounded so weird, almost like—“Yeah. I know.”

“You know??” He nodded. “You mean I tied my blamed intestines in knots for half an hour trying to figure out how to tell you something you already knew? How?”

“The files on the laptop. Obie knew. He knew they were going to do it. Fuck, he may have told them when dad was moving the serum—that’s what they killed him for, according to their notes—so they could have their agent in position. I remember how grateful I was, when he said he’d take care of the funeral arrangements. He insisted on closed caskets, said he wanted to spare me having to see them. What he wanted was to keep anybody from seeing any injuries that weren’t consistent with a car wreck. Getting rid of dad suited him as much as it did HYDRA, and mom was…collateral damage.” I pulled the plain-text pages out of the notebook and laid them on the table top where Tony picked them up. “Yeah, this looks like notes from the after-action report…there was video?” He swore under his breath, propped his hip against the table and kept reading, while I steadied myself. Stane had known, and done nothing; had even aided in setting his business partner, the man who called him friend, up to be brutally murdered. I wished I had done more than pee on his stone. 

“When’d you find out?” I asked.

“Same time as the other stuff. Those were the pages I’d just burned when you came to the roof.” A wry little smile tugged at his mouth. “You all right now? Guess I should’ve said something, but it didn’t occur to me you might find out and freak.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What about you, hon?”

Tony opened his mouth, but before he could speak another voice sounded. “Tony?” Steve walked into the library, with as tentative a step as a big wall of muscle can get. “Thought I heard you in here. Hey, Chris. I’m sorry, am I interrupting some work?”

“No, you’re good, Cap,” Tony said. “What’s shakin’?”

“I, uh, got something I wanted you to look at.” Steve was holding a manila file folder bristling with paper clips. Cyrillic lettering was bold on the outside. “Nat called in a favor from a contact in Kiev. This is the Soviets’ file on the Winter Soldier program. It got here while you were in California. I didn’t want to hit you with it as soon as you got back. Pepper told me a little of what was going on, how you found out your mentor was dealing arms to HYDRA and all, and I wasn’t gonna burden you with helping me on Bucky.”

“News flash, big guy, not a burden. It’s looking more and more like it’s all part of the same story anyhow. You were right, by the way, about the stuff you and Nat found about my parents’ deaths. HYDRA murdered them. Stane was complicit, but one of their assets killed them.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Tony…I’m so sorry, buddy. Are you okay?”

Tony let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, I, I think maybe I’ve used up my lifetime allotment of feelings on the subject. I’m kind of numb, right now. I’ve gotten as angry at Obie as you can at a dead man; no point in wasting any more effort on that shit.” He looked up at Steve and took hold of the folder. “Think I’ll save my energy to help you rip HYDRA up by the roots and salt the earth underneath.”

With a small nod, Steve let go of the folder. Tony flipped it open and halted. I stood up, put my chin on his shoulder and peered over. Clipped to the inside cover were two photographs. The larger one showed a man’s face, eyes closed as though asleep and long dark hair hanging loose. An eerie bluish hue tinted the image. Tony tapped it. “Cryo?” 

Steve nodded again. In the lower corner of the large photo, a smaller one was clipped, one I remembered from the history books, of a handsome young man in military uniform, his hat cocked rakishly. Both pictures were unmistakably of the same man, Bucky Barnes. I pressed my fist to my chest, my heart hurting. The pages facing were typewritten reports in Russian, with hand-written notations inserted here and there. “My Russian is pretty basic and pretty rusty, and just scanning the first couple of pages, there are scientific terms in here that make about as much sense to me as they would if I didn’t know any of the language at all. In other words, none. I thought maybe JARVIS could start translating it, since Nat’s planning to spend the rest of the week in Iowa,” he said.

“Yeah, Itsy Bitsy deserves her time off to play Aunt Nat to her favorite kids,” Tony grinned briefly. “Some of these sheets are so fragile, I’d rather handle them than try to scan them for JARVIS’ visuals. Gimme a day or two and I’ll have a decent translation.”

“You don’t speak Russian,” Steve frowned.

“Yet.” Tony’s grin widened. 

Steve opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as if trying to start up. “So, that thing about thermonuclear astrophysics…”

“Legit. Of course, science is my thing so I had a small head start on that one. Hence why it only took one night where this will probably take a couple of days.”

I squeezed Tony, then collected my documents and gave Steve a quick hug. “Don’t know, probably don’t want to know. Heading back to work. Holler if y’all need me!” As I left, Steve was asking if Tony was really all right, and Tony was good-naturedly demanding to know if Dr. Rausch had put Steve up to mother-henning him, or if it was a natural part of his disposition.

The next morning Steve was gone again, bound for Kyrgyzstan with Sam, chasing another lead on someone who might or might not be Bucky. The whole mess simmered in the back of my mind while I got my daily round of work activities done, then hunted Bruce down. An organization of children’s librarians had approached us asking for an interview with the Hulk, as he seemed to be one of the favorite Avengers among youngsters. Bruce got better at controlling his changes all the time, but he still needed a kick most of the time to Hulk out, still didn’t want to do it for what he considered frivolous reasons, and certainly didn’t feel safe doing it around anyone other than his team. That being the case, we debated assorted options before Bruce decided he would try to channel his inner Hulk to answer the list of questions I’d been sent. 

Then, of course, the assemble alarm went off—an explosion at a location just over the Canadian border, one on Simon’s list of HYDRA bases. With most of the Avengers out of pocket, Tony piled Bruce into the quinjet and called Rhodey, who was thankfully nearby. They weren’t gone long, though, returning with a report of the base reduced to smoldering cinders, and a backpack stuffed full of incriminating documentation and considerately placed near the landed jet while they were off reconnoitering. Tony nearly danced into his lab with glee, carrying the docs and fervently thanking whatever local vigilante or HYDRA turncoat had visited them with the gift. 

Rhodey had gotten just enough of a report from Tony of my recent adventures that he was infuriated, in his cool way. He ordered me to sit down and tell him everything, which I did. Paradoxically, that calmed him down. “I wonder if the ghost who keeps banging the HYDRA outposts might be the rogue ‘asset’ that McGann was supposed to be looking for,” he suggested.

I pondered his words after he left, while I interviewed the Hulk—duh, of course I was going to take advantage of his appearance to get the librarians what they wanted. JARVIS even videoed it for us to review and edit later. After I helped Bruce get settled following his change back, I poked my head into Tony’s hideout. He was sitting with earbuds in, glowering at a holoscreen, but popped them out as I approached. “Russian wouldn’t take so long to learn if I didn’t have to master a whole other alphabet first,” he grumped. “What’s up?”

“Something Rhodey just said gave me an idea. The rogue HYDRA op who’s hitting their bases might be the one Simon was hunting—and do you suppose it’s Bucky?”

Tony screwed his mouth to one side in thought, tapping a stylus on his knee. “Could be, although you’d think the notes would’ve specified ‘Winter Soldier’. ‘Asset’ seems to be their generic term for assassin, not somebody in particular.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Never mind. It was just a thought.” I poked him playfully. “Are you going to be as fluent as Nat by the time Steve gets back?”

“Of course! That way, she and I can say ‘pass the salt’ and ‘where’s my favorite mug’ at team breakfasts, glare at him occasionally, and drive him to paranoia, or at least make him brush up on his Russian.”

That was, naturally, not quite how it turned out. A couple of days later, Pepper and I had carved out time to have a kicked-back girl break in the penthouse. Fresh from what had sounded from his rantings like a very annoying meeting with some investors, Tony had blown through long enough to change his clothes and dash off for his workshop. He thought his Russian was sufficiently sound to start working through the Winter Soldier file, and I admitted, while Pep and I painted each other’s toenails, that I was eager to hear what it contained.

“Steve’s so worried,” Pepper nodded. “Think about it, Bucky could be out wandering around in the middle of nowhere, confused, hungry, exposed. It’s awful to even think about.”

i nodded. We were both sprawled on the big couch, I with my tongue half poked out concentrating on getting the pale pink just so on Pepper’s toes, when the elevator pinged behind me. “Hi honey,” Pepper said absently, focused on the Hot Rod Red (yes, it’s from OPI’s authorized Avengers collection) that she was painting my nails with.

“Girl, you didn’t even look up,” I snickered. “It could be an ax murderer you just called honey and you wouldn’t know.”

“I assure you, Miss Everhart, if an ax murderer had been en route to your location I would have advised you and Miss Potts immediately,” JARVIS commented.

“We love you, J,” Pepper pledged, then glanced over my shoulder, her eyes tracking the sound of movement behind me that had to be Tony walking. 

I tensed. “Is he sneaking up to give me a nookie or something? 'Cause if you ruin my toenails, hot rod, swear to Thor I will end you.” 

Tony didn’t answer me, and Pepper’s pleasant look shifted to mild concern. “Tony? Honey, is something wrong?”

Carefully (because, hey, bright red nail polish on toes) I pulled my feet out of Pepper’s lap and turned. Tony was slowly sitting down in a nearby armchair, just looking at us, with an expression I didn’t recall ever having seen on his face. He looked pale and almost dazed, like he’d just been whacked between the eyes with a two by four. I was on my feet instantly. “Are you feeling all right? When’s the last time you ate? Dang it, I keep telling you, one of these days your blood sugar is gonna tank and you’ll fall out in that lab and crack the floor with your hard-ass skull.”

His eyes finally focused on me. “Blood sugar’s fine,” he said, very softly. “I had a smoothie a while ago.”

“Okay.” I was marginally relieved, and glanced back at Pepper. “You want me to stay, sis, or no? I can help if he wants to lie down over here, and then get out if—”

“No,” Tony said suddenly. “Don’t go, Chrissy. Please? I, um, need some ideas, and—” He waved his hand at us. “I’ve got two of the best brains I know, right here, so might as well pick ‘em.”

Moved by his confidence in me, despite my lingering worry, I sat back down beside Pepper. “What kind of ideas?” she asked him.

He took a breath, let it out, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, rubbed his forehead. Whatever the problem was, the most brilliant mind I knew was frighteningly unable to put it into words. “I got into the Winter Soldier file,” he finally said. “The shit they did to Barnes…fuck. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, let alone my friend’s best friend. And the shit they made him do—they sent him all over the world, on this invisible leash of mind control, to do their dirty work, to…” His voice failed, and I was taken aback when his lips began to tremble. “My parents,” he almost whispered. “My mom and dad…the Winter Soldier killed them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I went there.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony deals with the truth about his parents' deaths. Pepper and Chrissy lend their ears and shoulders. Later, the team makes plans to move on the remains of HYDRA.

The stunned silence in the room was broken by Pepper’s low cry. “Tony, _no_ , oh Tony.” She was across the space in a second, dropping to her knees in front of him. He slid off the chair and folded into her arms, visibly shaking. I sat frozen on the sofa, my head buzzing from shock. Of course the Winter Soldier was an ‘asset’, HYDRA’s most precious one no doubt. It simply hadn’t occurred to any of us that that particular asset would be commanded to do that particular deed.

I shifted on the couch, feeling awkward and intrusive. Leaving was proper, but Tony had asked me to stay, had wanted my input on something. At my movement, Pepper looked over and jerked her head slightly toward the floor beside her. I had a sudden thought, and held up one finger, then hustled to look for tissues. If they were too tough to need them, Lord knew I was not. The closest I could find on short notice was a roll of toilet paper. I raced back with it, settled on the soft carpet and started to rub Tony’s back the way I knew he liked.

“There was video…” Tony rasped after a minute. “The notes Chrissy found talked about it. A security camera, HYDRA got it. There was a—a transcript, in the Russian file. The Soldier shot the tires out and they crashed. Dad th-thought somebody had stopped to help. He said ‘help my wife, please’—” Words dissolved into a quiet sob, and then another. In the years I had known him, I didn’t think I’d ever seen Tony cry, and I could no more have held back my own tears than I could rise and fly. Pepper was fighting the same losing battle. We just sat, and tried to give him what comfort we could, while decades of his bottled-up grief spilled out.

After a few minutes, when Tony started to calm, I gravely offered him the roll of paper. It got a watery little half-laugh from him, exactly as I had hoped. “I’m a billionaire and we can’t do any better than this?”

“This, darlin’, is what you get when you invite a redneck to move in. We make do with what we got handy.” 

His next laugh was punctuated by a sniffle. He sat back and took a few long breaths before he pulled me into a hug. “Sorry,” he breathed. “I didn’t mean to, you know…have feelings, all over the place.”

I tsk’ed and tapped him on the nose. “Shush. Now, you wanted me to stay, so how can I help?”

Pepper took advantage of the roll of tissue to wipe her own eyes. “From what Steve said," Tony said, "Barnes didn’t even know him, and judging from the way HYDRA scrambled the guy’s brains on the regular, I don’t know that he remembers much he’s done the past fifty years in and out of the icebox. It’s clear as quartz, the man bears no responsibility for what he was used for, any more than a gun’s responsible for killing somebody. How in the hell am I going to tell Steve this? Should I even put this on him, while he’s trying to find his buddy?”

“I totally understand what you’re saying, Tony,” Pepper told him gently, “but you know Steve deserves to know this.”

“I know. I do. It’s just, it’s overwhelming.” Tony clasped Pepper’s hands in his and kissed her knuckles. “You’ll be proud of me, honey. I tried to be all empathetic. I thought: what if it was me in Steve’s red white and blue shoes? Some accident with the suit knocks me out, I wake up a generation later, everybody I cared about is gone. I try to make friends and move on; then I find out Rhodey’s alive, but he doesn’t know me. And then my new friend says Rhodey killed his family. How would I feel? Would I be glad he told me, or mad? And then, I turned it around, and I thought: what if Steve had waited for Natasha to come back and translate the file, or, fuck, if he had gone through it instead of bringing it to me? He could have, you know. Hell, the guy’s got an eidetic memory; it might have taken him a little longer but he could have gotten through the important parts, if not the technical details. If he had found out Barnes killed my parents, what would I want him to do? What would he do? And I know, I know exactly what he would do; he’d tell me, without hesitating, because he’s that good a person.”

“And you aren’t?” Pepper sputtered.

“Tony,” I argued, “feeling conflicted, in a crazy situation like this, just makes you human, not bad! You’re right, I think, that Steve would tell you ultimately; but for heaven’s sake, you can’t tell me he wouldn’t have misgivings. You cannot tell me he wouldn’t wonder if he should, or worry about how to.” I shook my head a little. “Dammit, this is so you. You find out something like this, and the first thing you do is worry about how it’s going to affect somebody else. That, right there, proves what a good person you are.”

Tony snorted and looked away and down at the carpet. “Agreed,” Pepper said in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “And, too, having this information will help keep Steve safer. He’s going to keep looking, so he needs to know, going in, what Bucky’s been through. That way, he’ll be on his guard, in case something happens.”

Tony nodded slowly. “There’s a list in there, a group of words that they conditioned him to react to. From the description of the effects, it’s like hearing them locks him into the brainwashed state; turns him into the Winter Soldier, in effect.” 

I could not help but shudder in horror at the thought of being in such a state, of control of one’s own body being stripped away. Was this what Simon had wanted HYDRA to do to me? “Is there any way out of it?” I asked.

“Yeah, there’s mention of a trigger word that shuts him completely down. Haven’t read that far in the file yet, but believe me, I will find that fucker and write it on Cap’s shield. Or tattoo it on his damn arm. No, never mind, I bet a tat wouldn’t stay on him, the serum would probably eat it. Although--wonder if I could synthesize an ink that would stick. You know military guys and tats go together like peanut butter and jelly. Who knows, maybe he’ll want a battleship on his ass someday.” The tension and ache in my chest began to ease; Tony babbling was his natural state, so his return to that made me feel he was really calming down. “Oh, yeah, speaking of serum, HYDRA used dad’s secret sauce to make themselves a squad of Winter Soldiers. Or, they tried. It made ‘em super strong, but super aggressive and unstable. They all had to be put into deep freeze, and from all indications they were never taken out. So in some HYDRA base, one of these days, we may find five psycho Sleeping Super-Soldier-Beauties. Yay us. I’m not volunteering to kiss ‘em.”

“Better eat your Wheaties.” I nudged Tony with a smile.

“Steve better eat his. With any luck, he’ll find Barnes soon and we can get him on our side before we run across the evil Fab Five.”

“Here’s hoping,” I said. “So, if what you were asking for ideas about is how to break this to Steve, I would say all you have to do is tell him what you just told us.”

“Without blubbering all over his stars and stripes.” Tony’s lip curled.

Pepper wadded up a handful of toilet paper and threw it at him. “Stop it. This is a—an emotionally fraught situation to say the least. Steve would think it weirder for you not to be upset than for you to be.”

Tony put the projectile to good use, unfurling the TP and blowing his reddened nose. “I, ah, should be handling this better, I’m sure, but all these years thinking it was dad’s fault, that his drinking had finally—” He sniffed again, and hiccupped a little. “Now, knowing that almost the last thing he did was beg somebody to help mom…it’s one less thing to hold against him, and it just feels strange.”

I just nodded. “If you’re expecting Steve to be—horrified, or angry with you, somehow, I think you’ll be surprised,” Pep told him.

She got a hiked eyebrow in reply. “Should I worry that you know Cap that well?” Tony sniped, and got The Look, though its usual firmness was tempered by her small doting smile. 

“He’ll be fine. Think about your own self for a change,” I put in.

“Most people would say I do that too much as it is.” With one more good sniffle and a grunt, Tony got to his feet. Pepper and I followed suit.

“Yeah, and most people are as full of shit as a Christmas goose when it comes to knowing anything about you, too,” I returned stoutly.

“Damn right,” Pepper said under her breath. I was impressed, given how rarely she cusses.

Tony looked from her to me and back again. “Why the fuck are you two always in my face?”

Words, the Avengers insisted, were my superpower. I used them well, and knew how others used them. In particular, I spoke fairly fluent Tony, so it was automatic to me to translate the utterance that to anybody else would have sounded cross and peevish. To me, it said, _I am thankful you’re here._

“The Lord went to a lot of effort to keep you alive,” I shrugged. “My guess is, he also knew it was gonna take both of us to make sure you stayed that way.”

Pepper laughed softly, and Tony threw an arm around each of us.

Steve got back from Kyrgyzstan several days later. Tony had spent most of those days buried in the Soviet file, translating every word, compiling it in readable form, and printing into a folder. As he had said before, some things were just more believable in hard copy. For all of my and Pepper’s (and Rhodey’s, once he was read in on the whole mess) efforts to persuade him otherwise, Tony still seemed to think Steve would blame him, somehow, Lord only knew how. 

The morning he finished the file and screwed up his courage to go to Steve, I even offered to go with him, to support him in the nonexistent confrontation that he was nonetheless convinced was going to happen. He turned my offer down, though with obvious appreciation, and I went on with my work day, wondering sadly how many years of therapy it was going to take before Tony quit trying to carry the whole world on his own shoulders. My whole day was scheduled out of the tower, mostly interviews, and school appearances to talk to kids. I enjoyed those in particular; the kids were always full of questions that swung wildly from deeply emotional to sit-down-before-you-fall-down funny. 

The end of the day was a conference with the NYPD, though, and it took forever and made me so tense I needed a drink by the time I got back home. Well, I say home. I didn’t make it up to my apartment, only as far as the Tower’s lobby bar. I strode in with a bourbon lemonade on my mind, until I spied a familiar face half buried in a martini glass at a corner booth. “Hey, Pepper! Rough day?”

“Just stressful. What is it the fanfic writers say, ‘angst with a happy ending’?”

I cackled and sat down across from her. “I didn’t even know you knew what fanfic was.”

“Oh, I’ve browsed a few.” 

So had I, I’d just never mentioned it to the Avengers. “You know we’ll have to talk about this later,” I laughed after I ordered my drink. “So what’s up? Corporate raiders, government regulators, material suppliers?”

“Tony,” she replied with the telltale tilt of her head that was almost an eyeroll but not quite. “I went with him to take Steve the Russian file and talk to him about Bucky.”

“Oh, you went? Good. And it went fine, right? I mean, unless Tony started raising cain.”

“It went fine, much to Tony’s apparent shock. Steve’s immediate reaction, once he got over the initial surprise, was to tell Tony he didn’t have to help Steve look for Bucky anymore. He even said he could take care of paying for his own travel and gear when he goes out chasing down leads.”

“Understandable, although I don’t imagine Tony went for it.”

“You imagine right. Tony was aghast. His exact words were something along the lines of ‘Cap, if I have the wherewithal to help you find the poor guy and hopefully save him from HYDRA’s filthy clutches, hell yeah I’m gonna do it’. I think Steve thought, because Tony had promised to help him, he’d feel an obligation, even knowing this; but Tony made it abundantly clear he blames HYDRA and not Barnes for his parents’ deaths, and he intends to make them pay.” 

“I almost feel sorry for HYDRA,” I commented as my drink was delivered. “Operative word there being _almost_. They have no idea their asses are grass and the biggest God-almighty lawn mower ever created is bearing down on ‘em.” Pepper looked unamused. “I know you worry about Tony, sis, but he’s not chasing villains down alone anymore. The way the Avengers have come together—they’ve all got each other’s backs, they trust and care about each other. Makes me feel good to see it.”

“They’ve got you to thank in part for that.” Pepper finished her drink. "Do I want another?" she mused to herself. "Yes, yes, I do. I know you don’t drink to excess, so you’re my designated get-me-upstairs-and-pour-me-into-bed person, if it comes to that.” I toasted her in agreement. “You’re right about the team. That’s where Tony and Steve are right now, convening a meeting. They pried Bruce loose from his lab table, and Clint and Nat are conferencing in from his house. They want the others’ input on planning to hit HYDRA’s remains hard, and trying to find Barnes. I think Tony had JARVIS call Maria in too, to see if her SHIELD connections have any more intel they can share.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I agreed and sipped my drink.

“As long as Tony doesn’t start going off half-cocked again, it will be. I was hoping he might start tapering off his superheroing, but with SHIELD gone to ground, and now finding all this out, it’s going the opposite direction.” Pepper almost sighed out loud, and I patted her arm. “I’m so glad you’re here, Chrissy. If I were all alone in the tower trying to run the company and wrangle Tony, things would be—difficult. Well, more difficult than they already are.”

“Well, you aren’t alone. And you won’t be, you know that. I told you before, I’m with you till this train runs out of track.” I grinned. “Now, about that fanfic you’ve been reading.”

“Oh, yes. The fanfic.” Pepper giggled quietly. “I found the ones you alluded to, the ones where I have Tony _and_ Steve…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end of book 5! I told y'all the canon divergence was gonna get real in this part, remember? ::D 
> 
> Notes on this chapter: Tony refers to a trigger word that shuts the Winter Soldier down; it does not appear in the movies, but it does in the comics, in case you were confused. Also, his musings about making a tattoo ink that would stay on Steve might or might not appear later. lol
> 
> The next story, Out In Front, will cover the time period of Age of Ultron, and will follow my now well established pattern of taking the broad outline of events, and tearing, cutting and otherwise mutilating them, then sticking them back together with duct tape in a design that pleases me. lol. Chapter 1 will probably go up on Monday. I hope to continue posting a chapter every 2-3 days, but this one is moving a little slower than the earlier ones. It's proving harder for me to rework that mess. 
> 
> Thanks again to all those reading, kudo-ing and commenting. It means the world to me that you find something to enjoy in my brain's ramblings.


End file.
